Abstract This paper gives an explicit version of Selberg’s mean-value estimate for the prime number theorem in intervals, assuming the Riemann hypothesis [25]. Two applications are given to short-interval results for primes and for Goldbach numbers. Under the Riemann hypothesis, we show there exists a prime in $(y,y+32\,277\log ^2 y]$ for at least half the $y\in [x,2x]$ for all $x\geq 2$ , and at least one Goldbach number in $(x,x+9696 \log ^2 x]$ for all $x\geq 2$ .