'Coronavirus could be wiped out in London in weeks'?

[StrawberryRaven]

apple.news/AQChr2oq-SKqjEdQMD53_xQ

According to this sky news article London are only seeing 24 new cases a day, whilst the NE are seeing 4000.

Given that nationwide we all locked down at the same time, and if anything it should (in theory) be harder to slow the spread in a densely populated city like London... doesn't this suggest that the virus might have simply run out of people to infect in London?

Could there be an element of herd immunity going on here? What other reason could there be that I'm missing? 🧐

Looks promising doesn't it Rainbow.

I wonder how they know. I'm not convinced they are testing enough to have a reliable grasp of new cases. The testing they are doing may not be representative of the local population.

Even with our piss poor testing there is a huge difference between 24 and 4000, I think it's reasonable to accept the assertion that there are far more new cases in the NE vs London.

London was the most likely entry point for the virus given the number of flights landing at London airports. Then with densely packed population it spread quickly.

It will be a combination of lockdown, social distancing, hand washing and on going disinfection if supermarkets.

As long as the R stays under 1, the virus will die out. Fingers crossed we can keep it there!

This is great news!

It will be a combination of lockdown, social distancing, hand washing and on going disinfection if supermarkets.

If that's the primary reason for the drop in cases it still doesn't explain why the NE are still on 4000 cases a day- they've been following the same measures? By this rationale, if they started with less cases than London, you'd expect them to have nipped it in the bud sooner as they had a smaller fire to put out?

This is such wonderful news.

Has really cheered me up this morning.

I really, really hope it dies away.

But at the moment, most of London is at home. The streets are probably empty.
It’s not that easy to get tested. Many people who try to get a hometest are being wrongly refused by the NI checker.

I'm really dubious about the 25% nation wide figure. Anitbody testing in Spain shows only 5-10% having antibodies. Estimates of asymptomatic cases tend to be around the 20% mark, which is not "a vast majority". The lower R in London is very interesting. I wonder if there is some kind of "pocket herd immunity" going on, where all the "low apples" have contact on public transport and in workplaces, and establish their own herd immunity, whilst the more isolated people remain a more virgin population.

Not when people are commuting in London again on packed public transport!

This is really good. I’m still hopeful that if we keep up the social distancing and get a good heatwave over summer, it could wipe it out.
I know there’s no proof that a heatwave will wipe it out, but I hope it does.

Yes. I don't understand this. There's been loads of talk about the Government failing to lock down soon enough, which made the peak higher and cost lives. But the increased numbers of cases are now in areas that had low infection rates at lock down. Why didn't the relatively early lockdown stop the rise? I don't think London's lockdown is much more successful than the NE ( there have been pockets of dissension, but I'm sure that's true of most areas). Is it because of immunity decreasing the R, or something else?

Herd immunity is not an on/off switch - it starts to kick in straight away; each person infected is one person less it can be transmitted to lowering R.and as with lockdown the virus is most likely to be within clusters/groups of people that effect is amplified. When lockdown lifts it can spread to other groups/clusters (but still at a lower rate). But once the numbers are down to a few a day it becomes possible to do proper contact tracing again.

StrawberryRaven, perhaps it's complacency that's spreading it? I know a few pubs in the NE broke lock down, they did here in Liverpool and we had a cluster that resulted in hospital admissions and deaths. We had a steady rise later than London.

I think it shows that we will have a second wave just as winter hits. We'll think it has passed, travel and sport will start and figures will go up. Phase 3 means removing social distancing, that's when infections will start again. The likes of Belarus, whose leaders deny that it exists and some other groups, especially those 'protected by God', worry me. Unless we are building immunity, of course, but the experts are looking at this and are still saying that we aren't.

Cases in London are bound to increase now everyone is packed in like sardines on public transport.

Also, it does only kill a percentage, perhaps everyone susceptible to death has died, in London. That is until the shielded come out.

I wouldn’t be surprised if London had developed the start of herd immunity. It was packed with workers, shoppers, tourists right up until March.
I flew back to Heathrow mid March and there flights arriving, trains running etc.

I can't see it lasting, the cars on the road in the NE have increased dramatically over the last few days with people meeting up outside and not socially distancing, if those people then travel to London, which is theoretically possible it will soon pick up again. I think regional easing of lockdown would have been wise.

What makes me laugh is how the people who were certain London would be a continual hot spot, are literally holding your breath for things to worsen again. Just you wait...

Are those same people saying that about NZ? I mean NZ will have to open to tourists at some point. They can’t tgriw their tourism industry in the fire.

This is a good start to hopefully better days ahead .Looks promising ,but maybe still reason to feel cautious . Often Govts have to plan for "worse case scenarios" and maybe this is what has happened here .If only a small proportion of commuters take to cycling/walking that will have a good impact on numbers Tubes/buses .

That is new news. I had no idea. Blimey

It is only below 1 because we have had lock-down.

Most cases are occurring in reduced spaces indoors, like offices , food preparation areas, care homes etc > Link to discussion

Once we start going back to these indoor spaces the transmission rate will rise again as people will be meeting and working in these spaces again.

I cannot get over the government talking about us "passing the peak" as though we have cleverly sheltered from a tidal wave or a storm that is passing over us. It is not! We created the peak by isolating! As soon as we stop isolating the storm will start up again.

What they really mean is we have passed the peak of cases in ICU. There is space for you now - go out, catch it, give it to your friends, give it to your vulnerable relatives, go to hospital, die.