Risk of infection is probably higher now than at the start of lockdown?

[SeenBaun]

Seen a couple of threads about this on twitter. Obviously we don't have any reliable data about how many actual positive CV cases there are in the UK population versus before lockdown (rather than just those who have formally been tested positive) but it's bound to be higher now than on 23 March when the official number of active cases was around 6000. It's now around 190,000 and still rising daily.

So even if we assume there were 20 (just a number I've plucked out of the air)x 6000 cases at the start of lockdown there are still almost definitely more now, right? and each case is a risk of infection to the non-infected. The only way this isn't true is if lack of testing in March accounts for the difference between 6k and 190k. which seems a stretch.

Informally I've heard that numbers of new cases are rising again.

I do feel despair at the lockdown being perceived as having lifted and at the lack of strategy in testing and isolating.

Sorry if I'm covering ground that's been discussed here already, I don't go on here much and find it a bit overwhelming!

[WiseUpJanetWeiss]

However it will be people in hospitals who are under the clinical trials.not those in care homes I think. And initial results of those trials will be apparent to them. It must have been at least a month now

My mum lives in a care home and got a text from her GP today to invite her to join a trial if she develops symptoms.

[jcyclops]

1) But by the time the second and third groups develop symptoms and go on to infect others the majority of the original group of infections will have recovered.

2) My understanding is that when calculating the number of active infections you wouldn’t add the numbers together at the end.

1. is true. The vast majority will have recovered (or even not experienced major symptoms), a few may still be ill and a small number will have died, but it doesn't negate the fact that over 3 cycles 291,000 healthy people have been infected.
   
   
2. I'm not calculating the number of active, current infections. I'm calculating the number of people who were virus free at the start and since then either have, or have had the virus.
   
   The calculations were just testing OP's hypothesis that an individual could be more at risk now than at the start of lockdown, and they show that the hypothesis is reasonable and should not be dismissed. If the true number of infected people and an accurate value for "R" was known then (and only then) it could be proved to be true or false.