Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced today the virus’ reproduction rate is below one, which suggests the spread is slowing down. Mr Johnson said that the figure, known as the R0 (R-nought), has been pushed down by the lockdown restrictions introduced in March.

The R0 shows how many people can be infected by a confirmed patient before they can recover.

The higher the R0 number is, the aster the virus is spreading.

Experts said that if the number is above one the virus can still spread faster than one-to-one in the community.

Sir Patrick Vallance said, the UK’s R0 was between 0.6 and 0.9 and “probably somewhere between 0.5 and 0.7” in London. He added: “It’s not exactly uniform across the country”.

On Wednesday’s Downing Street briefing the chief scientist said: “What we’re doing now, and this is really important going forward, is actually measuring the R by measuring the number of active infections of a random population survey…

“It’s always the case in an epidemic [that] you get closer and closer to a precision value – it’s never going to be absolutely precise but we will narrow it down and it’ll be more of a measured R, which I think is an important point.”

While the Government is devising a plan to exit the lockdown, they will have to ensure the restrictions are changes in a way that the R0 remains as low as possible.

Unless it is through a vaccine or herd immunity, the only way to contain the virus for now is by modifying human behaviour, one expert told MailOnline.

On Wednesday, Mr Johnson presided his First Cabinet meeting since he was admitted in hospital with Covid-19.

Mr Johnson said he would not do anything that could increase the R0 above one.

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The only way officials can keep track on how fast the virus is spreading is by conducting mass tests, contact tracing and tracking the number of cases, although the scare testing in the UK can only allow limited judgement.

Dr Jennifer Cole, a biological anthropologist at the Royal Holloway university in London, told MailOnline: “It’s not a set number [R0]. Some of it is down to the characteristics of the disease but about 80 percent is due to the behaviour around it.

“People’s behaviour has much more impact than biological factors so, rather than understanding the R0 and what factors affect it, it is important to understand the characteristics that play into the R0 and to calculate and plan how you bring that down.”

The R0, Dr Cole explained, can never truly be known because it’s fluid, which means it changes in different areas and different situations.

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Mass, detailed contact tracing and mapping local outbreaks would be the most accurate way to find out the virus’s R0, by showing who is spreading the virus and how.

Widespread testing which includes people who have mild or no symptoms, as well as the sick and healthy, would be the best way to track it over time.

“It’s incredibly difficult to calculate [the R0] without doing it in retrospect,” Dr Cole said.

She added that specific data can show how fast the virus has spread, but these do not link to the present day.

“At the moment we don’t have exact numbers but we have a rough idea and, as long as you can say the R0 is between one and two, or between three and four, that’s broadly enough to make the decisions you need to on social distancing.”

And Sir Patrick Vallance said at yesterday’s briefing that the Government now has an ongoing “random population survey” to detect signs of infection clusters.

He explained: “At the moment we’re using a calculated R looking at all sorts of things including contacts, looking at genomics, looking at data from ambulances, hospital admissions, and so on, to calculate the R.

“And it’s right that it’s got a range. It would be falsely precise to say we know exactly what it is and different models give slightly different rates.

“It’s not exactly uniform across the country; in London it’s probably somewhere between 0.5 and 0.7.”

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