Germany’s “R” number: 1.06 on Friday, rising to 1.79 on Saturday and 2.88 on Sunday. Should the Germans be worried? Ross Clark writes in The Telegraph that the Germans should not, because the apparent acceleration in Germany’s R number shows the foolishness of focusing so much on a single figure. The rise in the number is entirely due to an outbreak in an abattoir in the town of Gutersloh in the region of North Rhine Westphalia, where 650 workers were found to have the virus. That is a closed environment kept at a chilled temperature which seems to have been an ideal place to promote the spread of the virus. It tells us nothing about COVID-19 in the rest of Germany (where, in fact, the numbers are in decline). “When the history of COVID-19 comes to be written, one issue which will need addressing is how mass fear was spread by the constant feeding of statistics by government and their agencies – figures which many people struggled to put into perspective. Here’s just a little more perspective. Germany so far has recorded 8,882 deaths from COVID 19. That is less than 1 percent of the approximately one million people who die in Germany every year,” Clark writes.