South London hit hardest by Coronavirus?

[HerstoryInTheMaking]

Hi eveyone I have been following this virus closely for some time.

I saw on sky news this table showing worst affected local authorities and was surprised nobody noticed how South London Boroughs were affected much worse than even other parts of London.

For example if we look at the table for the top 20 worst affected areas nationally 8 are in South London.

1. Southwark
2. Lambeth
3. Croydon
4. Merton

10. Bromley 11. Sutton 14. Lewisham 16. Wandsworth

Given that these boroughs all appear to have high rates and all are within proximity to each other wouldnt this indicate an apparent cluster. Im surprised the media havent covered this. Obviously we know London has had a lot but it seems to have been missed that South London is so badly affected.

Since many of these boroughs are poorer couldnt it indicate that poverty may be accelerating the virus?

Any thoughts?

Most of those boroughs adjoin one another or easily link through public transport - for example, Catford - Croydon on the 75 bus, 197 from Peckham (Southwark - and Guy's) to Croydon, 119 from Bromley to Croydon, 407/154/157/455/450 from Croydon (or Lambeth via Croydon such as the 468 from King's) to Sutton, Croydon to Merton via the 264 or Tramlink (which takes you to St George's Hospital) or Sutton to Merton via bus (St Helier as well as SGH), Merton to Wandsworth, Tramlink to Wimbledon. And then there are the trainlines - East Croydon to Victoria/London Bridge, Sutton to London Bridge, Wimbledon to everywhere because it also has the tube...

For the schools with larger/no catchment areas, such as Catholic Schools or private ones, there are a lot of kids who will travel considerable distances on public transport to get there.

The travel connections are so good that anybody who has to use public transport who is infectious will directly or indirectly contact a huge number of people in just one trip.

I don’t know if I would read too much to it based on these figures as we know testing is a bit haphazard. Maybe rates admission per borough would be more meaningful.

I’m in one of those boroughs and DDs school was shut before lockdown because of a case in the wider community.
I think a lot of the schools in our area were affected by children and staff returning from ski trips in Europe around Feb half term.

Here's some more data
www.progressive-policy.net/publications/covid-19-local-area-risk-rating

I live in the highest risk area in the West Midlands (not highest cases but highest based on health and healthcare provision)

I posed the question why Birmingham is such a hotspot, so interested in this thread too.

I am in one of those Borough's
The problem is though that if these are hospital deaths (and they usually are) that some hospitals are in a different Borough to the Trust .
Ie . Guys Hospital is in Southwark but takes patients from Lewisham Borough , Lewisham itself has University Hospital Lewisham .

Good point - my borough has no hospital in it. In fact the only one of my 5 children born at home is a very very rare birth in the borough (as born at home) - his twin was born on he same day in a different borough in hospital (and we were back to the borough where we live the same night). My older 3 children child similar were born out of borough as a very very short distance over the border is the hospital (where lots of covid 19 patients have died)

I'm in one too. A few people I know who have been ill have had tests done for antibodies. Two that I know of who had quite typical symptoms have tested positive. They were ill quite a long time ago - early March. Other people who I know who think they have had it reported symptoms similar to bad flu and feeling very 'out of it' plus huge fatigue that lingered quite long afterwards. I have heard of a few elder people dying with it but not necessarily of it as they had underlying health conditions. Hospitals have been eerily empty and there are far fewer ambulances zooming around than usual. A friend lives opposite Kingston Hospital and says she has never seen so little activity as during 'lock'down'. I have heard from a doctor at one of the hospitals in S.W London that they have only had one covid case in the past two weeks. Hardly a pandemic, if it ever was one. A true pandemic would mean that every single community would have been decimated by the disease. Everyone would know someone in their family, in their street that had been seriously ill/had died from it. This has simply not been the case. We have been sold a fear package but the question is: why?

I’m in south east London and don’t know a single person who has had it let alone died from it

Brothers wife works in St Thomas’ and five of their cleaning staff have died from it. Nurses have also died so it may be due to hospitals.

That is so sad Confused

We have been sold a fear package but the question is: why

There was a lot to fear and still is.

Without the lockdown over half a million people in the UK would be dead now

I'm in a SE London borough not listed. We were pretty much one of the last boroughs to get any cases at all. If I had to guess the reason it would be because we don't have any hospitals with A&E departments. Anecdotal obviously, but I know plenty of people who think they have had it and a few elderly relatives have sadly died.

I’d be more interested in where the cases lived than which hospital they die in. As people have said they closed the A and E in Bexley for instance so Bexley residents would go to any number of S London hospitals.
And the borough of residence isn’t helpful. South London is so diverse. Bromley is an affluent borough but there are some poor constituencies-and some very affluent areas in Southwark so I’d be interested in finer detail

St Georges is the biggest hospital in the UK and 9th biggest in the world.
We were slammed by Covid and were taking patients from all over South London and then as it progressed, from North London as well.

If lock down hadn't happened we would have been overwhelmed in the way that many of the smaller hospitals were.