The North East is currently the only part of the country getting a grip on the coronavirus epidemic, England’s chief medical officer has suggested.

Professor Chris Whitty says the region is the only part of the country where the reproduction rate of the virus, known as the R rate, which shows how many people will catch the virus for each person currently infected, is approaching 1. 

He told MPs: "The only part of the country where at the moment I think there there is realistic evidence that the numbers have flattened, where the R is approaching one, is probably in terms of region is the North East. There may be some smaller areas elsewhere.

"But it is still, as far as we can tell, still going up, albeit at a much much lower rate. And this is the view of the local directors of public health as well as the central view, as well as the NHS view. So this is a quite widely held view."

The way the R rate works is as follows. An R number between 1.1 and 1.3 means that on average every 10 people infected will infect between 11 and 13 other people.

Prof Whitty was speaking to MPs who are holding a House of Commons inquiry, after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a full national four-week lockdown.