https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02009-w
What the reproduction number can and can’t tell us about managing COVID-19.
In this pandemic, R has leapt from the pages of academic journals into regular discussions by politicians and newspapers, framed as a number that will shape everyone’s lives. As Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, explained in a widely viewed video this April, an R above one means an outbreak is growing, and below one means that it is shrinking. In many countries, it is publicly reported every week. In June, epidemiologists at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, announced a website where anyone can look up the value for any country — and for many smaller regions — in the world.