No cases at all. Why?

[OntheWaves40]

I work in a company with over 100 people squashed in a small building. No social distancing as we can’t due to nature of place. Agency staff and families coming and going. We have no PPE what so ever and get coughed/sneezed on. Yet we don’t have a single confirmed case of covid.
Is it that it’s not as bad as we think? Surely it can’t be as we are highest in uk. Is it that we are lucky but a ticking time bomb?

[Coronabored]

A head office with over 5000 people. No one so far has it or at least any serious kind of illness. No one my sister knows (NHS Worker) the same. Me or my wife and extended families don't know of anyone and we are spread out all over the east and west midlands. Guess anecdotal cases work both ways.

[TheDrsDocMartens]

A Teacher in Cumbria died as schools closed. Think it was just after but their school was closed.
One outbreak in Cumbria was linked to a secondary school where a teacher was ill

[greathat]

There were teachers dying before schools closed :(

[MsAwesomeDragon]

I'm in Cumbria, where as pp said, we've been badly hit considering the demographic of the county (fairly rural mostly).
Several of my teaching colleagues have had it, but only 2 officially diagnosed as they weren't bad enough to need to be hospitalised. The 2 officially diagnosed had been to Italy in Feb half term, but not one of the areas we were told were affected, and were diagnosed when we were still pretending to do community testing and contact tracing. Other teachers, and I assume pupils, caught it from those, and it spread to other schools as well via meetings held in the first school to be affected.

Teachers do get it. The only real reason we haven't heard of more teachers being ill/dying is because we closed schools to all but key worker children relatively early. It's significantly easier to do social distancing with 20-30 children than it is with 2000 of them!

[MRex]

London, I know several people who've had it. My siblings both know many more because of their jobs, one is struggling with the mental impact of the deaths. BIL's gran died. My very close friend is NHS also and has found it really hard losing a couple of younger patients who were otherwise healthy.

Lockdown will end and inevitably there will be more cases. You'll get your chance to see them OP. Meantime you might want to talk to your employer about attempting social distancing at work or PPE.

[Yellredder]

I'm NW too - I know two over 70s who have had it but are OK, another one who died and a colleague's younger family member was quite poorly with it. These cover quite a wide area though geographically.

[TheDrsDocMartens]

NW is a large area, Cumbria has been particularly hit. I know a few people who have had it (diagnosed) a few died and a lot (100s )of suspected cases. My town has 11000 people.

[Dadnotamum72]

Supermarkets and teachers are interesting with all the worries there are about going shopping/ cleaning packaging etc I wonder how many shop staff have actually been effected? are there any stats yet on deaths by occupation?

[Waxonwaxoff0]

I know 4 people who have had it. 2 of them were over 70 and 2 of them are NHS workers.

I'd be interested to know how many school staff have had it with children apparently being "super spreaders." Some key worker children have still been going to school and nursery this whole time.

[Kingjarvis]

We have 3 sites open. Over a hundred staff. No social distancing. Not one person has had it.

[1300cakes]

It's not that strange, 200k people have tested positive. Which is a huge number but still a small percentage of the population - you wouldn't yet expect everyone to personally know people who've had it. Also consider the numbers are not evenly spread, some facilities have dozens of cases. Meanwhile there are places where hundreds of people gather with no cases.

Also it's only spread by coughing if people actually have it. So the number of people coughing is irrelevant really, it's not like it's generated by coughing.

[ComtesseDeSpair]

Central London. Must know about 200+ people in terms of friends, acquaintances, colleagues and clients. Don’t know anyone who’s had it diagnosed; know one person who was unwell for several weeks; know maybe three or four people who’ve had symptoms which could be Covid or could be flu or could be a bad cold, all recovered within a week or so.

But totally makes sense - virtually everyone I know is aged 25 - 45, fit, no underlying conditions. Tiny likelihood of severe illness or death.

[MsAwesomeDragon]

I'm NW too. I know 4 people who have died, all of them are my dad's friends so men over 70. I also know several people who have had it, but mildly and not confirmed (classic symptoms though, just not bad enough to need hospitalisation so no test).

My boss, a teacher, was ill with flu like symptoms for the last 2 days of school being open. Who knows how many of us he infected? I don't even know if any of the other teachers in my department have got ill because we aren't all close enough friends to spend time chatting on the phone, and we aren't having group meetings as my school is paranoid about cyber security (possibly justified in terms of gdpr, but a little frustrating). 5 of the kids I teach have lost a grandparent in the last month, that's not a normal rate, and they do tell us these things normally so we can give some extra tlc/consideration. Which of those grandparents died of covid I suspect we'll never know, because they weren't tested as they died at home.

[shiningstar2]

We know of 3 people who have died of it. Not close friends or family but people with names and faces. Daughter and her husband seem to have had it, daughter quite ill with typical symptoms. No test though so can't be sure. We are quite shocked though to know of 3 definite deaths.

[camillatopaz]

NW here as well and no confirmed cases for us or anyone we know in our area. My family live NE and they've only heard of 1 case in their town of around 4,000 population.
Does anyone know how close we are to getting hold of retrospective testing kits? Would be interesting to see figures people having have had it mildly (and assumed it was a regular cold or something), or even been through it completely symptom-free.

[RainbowMum11]

Well I work on my own, from home in a small town and I know for a fact that at least 4 people locally have tested positive, including my next door neighbour (works in a care home but mild symptoms), and there have been 2 deaths in my small town that I know of and quite a few more in the surrounding towns.

[OhTheRoses]

And 200,000 (cases)/66m = 0.3%.

[OhTheRoses]

Thank you @giganticshark. I am grateful to you and your colleagues. The ladies at my hyge local supermarket are all well too.

I don't know anyone who has had it either. London. I think this is why if one imagines 40k deaths. 40,000/66000000 = 0.08%

[Giganticshark]

I'm a supermarket worker in the NW. All 120 staff in my building are healthy. I too expected supermarket to be hit hard

[Northernsoullover]

I know people who have had it (NHS, carers) my SILs granny died. If you look at the map from the ONS, 6 people in my middle layer super output have died. When you look at the numbers its really not that many. When you add them up its much more frightening.
However all the supermarket workers in my local area are well (fortunately) and my local pharmacy. These are the places I have been expecting staff to be ill.

[80sMum]

I'm in the southeast and I know 5 people who have had it, three in their 60s and two in their 40s. Both of the 40-somethings and one of the 60s spent time in ICU. Two of those three were ventilated and in a coma and it was 50/50 whether they would make it through.
I'm relieved to say that they are all now recovering. The last one was discharged a few days ago having spent almost a month in hospital.

[donquixotedelamancha]

I'm NW and know a few people who have died from it.

Only about 3-6 million people in the country will have had it since feb. Most will have been mild. Not really surprising if many people don't know someone with a serious case.

[bombaychef]

NW. know people who have had it very bad but not ended up in hospital: at work and socially, . Know of some one who died that I met several times. Work with person who lost a family member. Knew the GP inBury that just died. So whilst we are fine, it's only an arms length away...

[Hunnybears]

I’m struggling to understand the concept of the test unless it can also tell you whether you’ve had it.

All it can say is that you’ve not fit it at that particular time. By the time you get home you could have caught it at the shop but won’t know, will spread it about and so forth.

[Weallhavevalidopinions]

Maybe your workplace has lots of younger people in it? "The NHS stats show over 90% of deaths are over the age of 60 with deaths over 80 by far the most hit group"

Gradually as time goes on more and more people in my larger circle report that they have had it and no deaths thankfully. Where we live - rural area, the deaths are from elderly in care homes - it's sad but maybe shielding of the very vulnerable is the way forward.