THE Government remains confident the reproductive rate of coronavirus is still under one as new figures suggest it has crept up.

The so-called R-number, which is the average number of people that will contract coronavirus from an infected person, is now between 0.7 and 1.0 in England, according to Government scientific advisers.

The rise in the figure is thought to be driven by the virus spreading in care homes and hospitals rather than the wider community, but previous data put it at between 0.5 and 0.9.

Matt Hancock, speaking at the Number 10 daily press briefing, said the R number was an "incredibly important figure", and it was important to note "we don't think that it is above one".

He added: "Everybody can play their part in keeping R below one and pushing R down.

"You can do that by following the social distancing rules, so if you do go outdoors, do it only with members of your household and keep two metres away from others who aren't in your household.

"And those social distancing rules are incredibly clear, and they will help to keep us safe."

Mr Hancock also said he supported the phased reopening of primary schools - which has been set for June 1 at the earliest.

It comes after teaching unions said they were unconvinced by the "flimsy" scientific evidence on which the move has been made.

Mr Hancock said: "I wouldn't support a proposal to reopen schools unless I thought it was safe to do so. It is safe to do so."

But he stressed there was an "awful lot of work to do in each individual school to make sure that that is done in a way that is safe".

He said the risk from coronavirus "was much, much lower (for) children than any other age group in society, certainly if you don't have underlying health conditions".

Deputy chief medical officer, Dr Jenny Harries said it was important to put the risks in perspective.

She said: "If currently we have, say, two or three in 1,000 of our population with infection, then in the proposed time frame coming forward in the next couple of weeks that's likely to halve.

"There's a lot of anxiety I think around this but people need to think through - in an average infant school with 100 children the likelihood of anybody having this disease is very small and diminishing with time, so I think we just need to keep that in perspective."