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Covid

4 weeks behind Italy??

12 replies

Snowy111 · 12/03/2020 21:07

Have heard Jeremy Hunt on channel 4 news and on radio 4 tonight saying, unchallenged, that we are 4 weeks behind Italy. But on 27th February, Italy had 400 confirmed cases. Today’s WHO report the UK have 460 confirmed cases. Surely that makes us 2 weeks behind? Am I missing something?

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Exochord · 12/03/2020 21:07

No I agree, we’re more like two weeks behind.

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QueSera · 12/03/2020 21:10

You are absolutely right.
Shameful that they got away with that blatant lie.

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Snowy111 · 12/03/2020 21:15

Not sure he speaks on behalf of the government nowadays but why would he say this? There seems to be such a resistance to “going nowhere too early” but I’m very worried they’re not taking this seriously enough

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Snowy111 · 12/03/2020 21:15

“Going too early” that should have said!

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DrSheldonCooperPHD · 12/03/2020 21:16

I can't find the thread now but someone posted a graph they'd been plotting for the last week of U.K. vs Italian cases and worked out we are 10-14 days behind.

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Snowy111 · 12/03/2020 21:17

There was an epidemiologist on the news this morning also saying 2 weeks

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TheABC · 12/03/2020 21:24

It's Jeremy Hunt, so I am putting it down as "wishful thinking". 4 weeks behind brings us nicely to the Easter holidays and a smaller public impact on shutting schools, universities and businesses (by default).

I am still surprised we are not banning large events for the immediate future.

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bemoreeverything · 12/03/2020 21:35

We will never reach the same numbers as Italy due to lack of testing anyway.

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Snowy111 · 12/03/2020 21:50

That’s very true, there is definitely a lack of testing.

Not sure if that’s what’s happened with China - have they got on top of things or just stopped testing?

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Snowy111 · 12/03/2020 22:01

Got some reason China’s latest testing figure is from 20 February en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_testing

US is right at the bottom of the pile!

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NotStayingIn · 12/03/2020 22:19

First I thought the discrepancy was due to the difference in size of population between UK and Italy, but they aren’t really that far apart. So I don’t get it either. But surely they will have done their research? Would be crazy to get something like that wrong? (Sadly we shall see sooner or later...)

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BookMeOnTheSudExpress · 12/03/2020 22:22

On all of the Corona threads (the long running ones) it's been said two weeks, until today, when it changed to four. Maybe the truth is somewhere between, maybe the convenience of the Easter holidays has helped them come up with the notion of four weeks.

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