A prior distribution was specified for R𝑒𝑓𝑓, with mean 2.6 (informed by Imai et al., 2020) and a broad standard deviation of 2 so as to allow for a range of R𝑒𝑓𝑓 values. Finally, R𝑒𝑓𝑓 is estimated with a moving average window, selected to optimise the continuous ranked probability score, in order to smooth the curve and reduce the impact of localised events (i.e., cases clustered in time) causing large variations.