Quote Originally Posted by The Lone Gunman View Post
To be honest, I think a large percentage of people have long since stopped considering the specifics (if they were ever concerned with them in the first place). Personally, I've never really understood the 'R' number. It's never made sense to me. I'm sure if I sat down and studied the theory I'd get it eventually, but I've not bothered to try and I'm absolutely certain that's the case with the majority of the public.
It's the amount of people one person could infect. If it's above 1 the virus will grow exponentially, if it's below 1 it'll gradually die out due to lack of people infecting each other.

For example if the R number is 3 then each person who gets it will pass it on to 3 other people, if it's 1 then each person will pass it on to 1 other person. So if it's less than 1 then each person will pass it to "less" than one other person so it doesn't spread as much and dies.

Interestingly, left unchecked, measles has an R number of 15