The estimated value of a min was approximately 6% less than the modelled serological attack rate for the three parameter combinations examined. This suggests that few additional lives could have been saved by increasing the degree of social distancing, unless it was able to eliminate the epidemic. The observation that R(t) reduces to near 1 for a prolonged period during the last days of the epidemic further supports the conclusion that a was close to a min . Substituting aZ0.588 into equation (4.6), the expected reproduction number during the final stages of the epidemic is 0.725substantially less than the 0.95 observed. Table 2 . Values of the attack rate a and the corresponding values of the initial susceptible proportion (s(0)), the basic reproduction number (R 0 ), the minimum and maximum fractions that could have been infected (a min , a max ), the adjusted reproduction numbers during periods when we expect that social distancing is at a minimum (R A (B), R A (D) and R A (F)), the social distancing coefficient when social distancing was at its greatest (s min ), and the estimated number of deaths avoided per 100 000 (D). (Values in the first row are computed by assuming that a was 10% less than the reported clinical attack rate with s(0) allowed to vary freely. The second row is computed using the clinical attack rate as an estimator for a. The third row is computed by adjusting a to obtain s(0)Z1.0.) The relationship between the adjusted reproduction number and the number of daily deaths for the first and second waves shows a negative trend-more deaths mean greater social distancing (figure 5a,b). For figure 5c,d, we wish to plot the reproduction number against the number of infections on the same day. Since the number of infections is unknown, we use the number of deaths 9 days later as a proxy. The clockwise cycles reveal the delay between the infection and the subsequent decline in R A (t)-and hence the degree of social distancing.