'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? 🧐

@Cornettoninja

There’s no time machine available but it will be clear in a year or so whether or not there were extra deaths likely attributable to covid or not by making yearly comparisons.

I think the ONS statistics already show the huge number of deaths occurring as a consequence of CV. They are huge. Strokes, heart attacks etc where people are not going to hospital when they should do. Hence why the government is trying to get people back to seeing their doctors and going to hospital as there are going to be more deaths as a consequence than if Covid.

What I pointed out is it doesn't heat when the CV figures are stupidly inflated with deaths that are not CV. Ie 90 year old person, dies at home , not seen doctor in last three days, no Covid symptoms, no positive Covid test. How on earth can that be a death of "presumed Covid".

The cure is definitely turning out to be worse than the disease.

@Bluewarbler27 because there are such fewer cases down south now so the majority are in the north
As per the reports and stats

There is page on BBC website where you can put your postcode in to see how many cases there are

The news last week was reporting on the 10 worst affected counties for infections and many of them were northern. Cumbria being one of them, which is surprising as outside of holiday season it’s not as densely populated as counties in the south

If you are high risk of dying then you have some clear underlying health conditions and even then it's not a certainty. So you shield if that's the case

@Rebelwithallthecause I understand that but the daily cases hardly ever get to 4000 so how are there 4000 cases a day in the northwest?

I think they're extrapolating from population samples to include people not tested/asymptomatic.

This is great news. Presumably a similar pattern should soon be seen in other hot spots, though maybe with a smaller %.

I don't think it's likely that people in the NE were in general breaking the rules more than people in London. So maybe more people in London have had it than we thought. Or maybe a significant number have natural immunity (is it possible that if you've had the right strain of common cold caused by a Coronavirus you might be less susceptible?) The other alternative is that it's less contagious than we thought. Given how new the virus is, I'd say any of the above is possible.

Either way, this is good news, we might be closer to the light at the end of the tunnel than we think.

It’s good news and hopefully it will ripple out.

I’m in the SE. I know a lot of people who work in and around London and most were working from home from early March. London and the SE started locking itself down before we were told to and I think that has contributed to R coming down earlier here - pp mentioned 16 March for the R coming down. That’s sounds about right.

I’m from the NW. I have a GP friend there who was tearing his hair out (on Facebook) in early April because of the lack of social distancing going on in his local park. People standing far too close to each other around a duck pond - kids touching each other whilst they feed the ducks whilst their parents stand around chatting to each other. That was just one park. What was going on further out into the local community? And then the infection and death rates went up.

I’m not sure if this virus will die out on its own, the government guidance says it’s unlikely but I do think more people who have immunity the harder it will be for it to spread.

in a glorious piece of faulty thinking, the congestion charge is coming back and at a higher daily rate. Sadiq Khan says this is to encourage people to walk or cycle rather than drive. But he also wants people to avoid public transport.

This presumably has nothing to do with the massive hole in TFL's finances.

anyway, more will go onto public transport with possible rises in cases. I hope I'm wrong...

@MarieG10 I don’t doubt your reasons for believing that’s happening but I do question how widespread that is.

I know that deaths that are clinically diagnosed without testing are counted but it’s a difficult line to tread currently between died of and died with.

Ultimately it’s better to overestimate and correct later rather than the opposite.

Good news. Don’t let the Cornish come up here and spread their germs

Have I missed a link for this information? Where are you getting these facts from?

Amazing 😄
but surely as it's a busy hub it will just come right back 🤔😳🤷🏼‍♀️

@KnobChops indeed!

Yet on the post regarding this on AIBU, the OP is getting bashed.

🤷🏻‍♀️

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3909641-to-feel-relieved-because-London-could-be-virus-free-by-the-end-of-the-month

Good news. Don’t let the Cornish come up here and spread their germs

I'm not buying it - the media are great at manipulating its readers

Yet on the post regarding this on AIBU, the OP is getting bashed. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm sure if I had posted this in AIBU (without the news link in the OP) the wolves would have descended too. More reasonable bunch of people in the Coronavirus section IMO

I'm really glad to read this because I'm really baffled by this to! I really can't see how London can have aquired herd immunity in such a short time without overwhelming the NHS in London. But I really don't think that difference in cases can be attributed to London citizens following lockdown better. I live in a medium sized NE town, and I don't feel like I have seen that many people breaking the rules. I realize it will differ between towns, but for such a massive difference I just don't believe it can be driven by behaviour differences between the populations.

And it makes no sense when you see countries like Denmark that locked down early when cases were low and so were able to get on top of cases better. Surely this should have been the case in the NE.

I can kind of understand the argument that there is herd immunity just among the people still going out to work etc. in London and it will start to spread once other workplaces go back. But surely the same would be happening in the NE - I would assume we have similar proportions of people still working?

It's very confusing and there is obviously a lot we still don't know.

I’m not sure if this virus will die out on its own, the government guidance says it’s unlikely but I do think more people who have immunity the harder it will be for it to spread.

Ultimately I think it will be just one of those virus that circulate. Several hundred or may a few thousand vulnerable mostly elderly people will die each year in sporadic outbreaks but it will be something as a society we will just live with. Compared to deaths due to the lack of antibiotics in a few years time it will barely register.

Ultimately I think it will be just one of those virus that circulate.

I agree, we have to objectively weigh up the overall risks and adapt. Asia and continental europe has or is resuming slowly, with some possibly longer term changes (e.g. routine tests at airports or other places, working remotely vs public transportation / schooling and the demise of large scale events). Any new virus' first outbreak brings the world to its knees. There is no cure or vaccine for new strains of flu, SARs, HIV, Zika, but we have coped by controlling or minimising outbreaks or its effects. Obviously we all would rather a viable vaccine is found.

But surely the same would be happening in the NE - I would assume we have similar proportions of people still working?

Far fewer people using public transport in the NE which would have been the major spreader in London. I have a friend who is frontline NHS staff and he says cases have dropped here (NE) as well, they are starting doing other procedures now. Where did the 4000 a day cases in the NE come from?

I would question the 4000 new cases in the NE being implied as a daily number
a local NE newspaper cites the following stats
According to the latest figures released by Public Health England on Thursday, May 14 there are 9,352 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the North East – a rise of 94 from Wednesday, May 13.

in my mind I would have preferred a Wuhan-style very strict authoritarian lockdown for a painful but relative short period of time, to eliminate the virus within the community. Pour all resources to tackle within hospitals, accept there will be deaths including with medics, and then the virus would have run its course. Then reopen and put indefinite border controls (e.g. enforced isolation for all arrivals for 2 weeks). It's my preferred war strategy rather than a half baked lockdown for an extended period of time.

but hey nobody knows