LONDON: Britain's estimated reproduction "R" number has increased slightly to between 0.9 and 1.0, from 0.8-1.0 a week ago, government scientists said on Friday.

While scientists were confident that the epidemic was shrinking in some areas in England, it was not confident the R number was below 1 in London, the southeast and the east of England.

The growth rate was between -2pc and 0pc, a slight rise from last week, indicating the number of new infections was shrinking between 0pc and 2pc each day.