Some graphs illustrating why UK should probably wait a few more weeks to lift any lockdown measures.

[Guylan]

Firstly, I know the UK can’t stay lockdown forever, but I think there is a good argument that the number of cases need to be a bit lower before significantly lifting lockdown measures especially as the testing, tracing and isolating system is not ready yet.

Some other European countries had their peak a bit earlier than the UK so their daily cases are now lower and they can start to ease lockdown measures. This screenshot shows the number of daily cases amongst various European countries.

This petition - not asking anyone to sign - gives some useful info on how Johnson’s govt are still not following WHO advice. www.change.org/p/uk-government-the-uk-government-must-follow-who-advice-on-dealing-with-covid-19?recruiter=1084796503&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=share_petition&utm_term=share_petition

I fear UK locked down that bit too late and now are in danger of lifting measures that bit too early.

[LilyPond2]

I don't think everyone reporting symptoms on Zoe gets offered a test. My understanding is that they only pick a sample of people reporting new symptoms.

[JimMaxwellantheshippingforcast]

I suppose the good thing about Zoe is that if you report symptoms you now get offered a test, whereas before you just had to isolate yourself

[LilyPond2]

covid.joinzoe.com/data
Has anyone else become an avid follower of the maps generated by the JoinZoe app? The good news is that there has been a sharp fall in cases since lockdown was introduced, but depressingly today there is a clear trend of cases rising in much of the country. I think it's madness to extend school opening in areas where there is strong evidence that infection rates are rising (eg large parts of the Midlands at present). The government should be realistic about the fact that infection rates differ significantly between areas, and should have more sophisticated school opening plans, eg I'd be open minded about a cautious reopening of schools in carefully selected areas of South West England, but at the moment, reopening of schools in (for example) Birmingham is clearly a bad idea.

[HotPinkLilies]

The problem is that the lockdown was never a proper lockdown. After two weeks of it people got fed up and started taking the piss. You don't get that kind of behaviour in many other countries. It should have been a police enforced lockdown. We're never going to get a handle on it at this rate.

[FourTeaFallOut]

But then yes, I do think we'll be able to make it work.

[FourTeaFallOut]

For it to work effectively you need low community cases. It might work well in some parts of the country. Other parts are being dragged along in a London time table and all the more vulnerable for it. There are places in the North East and the North West where there has been an uptick in cases and the r0 is .85.

[nellodee]

Will we have the test and trace program ready to go, though?

[FourTeaFallOut]

Apparently you are meant to close your ears and your eyes to the facts in front of your nose and 'be brave'. They seem to think it is the stoical thing to do but from my perspective it looks like learned helplessness. The 'be brave' posters seem to think that nothing we do will make a difference and so we should 'take it on the chin'. Yet we have perfectly good evidence that with a good push we could reduce the community cases further to allow for a more effective track, trace and isolate approach.

[BirdieFriendReturns]

The petition is going really well so far. I’m sure they’ll be debating that in parliament tomorrow.

[Guylan]

@Birdiefriendreturns, no argument deaths are dropping but there not low enough quite yet. Also the NHS England data II believe is just for hospital deaths and don’t include community deaths.

[Guylan]

follow this guy on Twitter and his graphs show the infection rate is dropping due to the fact we are testing much more.

There is no argument the cases are dropping and as we test more that will help with getting a better picture of case rate, though obviously still need much more testing to do that, but the argument is UK need just a few more weeks at this level until going onto the next step.

[BirdieFriendReturns]

www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/COVID-19-total-announced-deaths-17-May-2020.xlsx

[Guylan]

And I'm not arguing for an ongoing strict lockdown. I want us to take the much needed extra two to three weeks (very short period of time in the grand scheme of things) to lockdown - and use that time wisely. Prepare for a safer easing. Quite simple measures, achieved by other countries. PPE, more testing including antibodies, drugs, masks, border restrictions. Job done. A safer way out that avoids many more needless deaths and further economic damage.

Agree Toffeeyoghurt.

Thanks Nellodee for your table.

Weallhavewings, I agree excess deaths is the best measure. Thanks for sharing the euromomo graphs.

[HairyFloppins]

@JimMaxwellantheshippingforcast yes love Peng here as well.

[Guylan]

Ps @runningninja, I should add I don’t know whether it’s necessary to reverse the v few lockdown measures that were lifted this week - and I am also aware that 49% of the working population have been working outside the home throughout the lockdown - I think probably no. However, there does seem a strong case to not lift them further for a few more weeks.

[nellodee]

For full clarity: the new cases for France weren't there for that day - I chose the higher of the two surrounding days (I couldn't be bothered to start again) but I think they may be a bit high, since the day in the middle was missing for some reason.

[nellodee]

I did a little comparison of the stats for last Wednesday. I chose a day midweek, because a lot of countries have weird weekend dips. I put Denmark in there, because people keep talking about Denmark, and Sweden in there, because it gets a lot of interest. Really, the countries we want to compare ourselves with are the larger ones.

[Guylan]

This virus is going nowhere not unless there's a cure or a vaccine. There are other things to consider. OK so I'm not saying we should all go back to normal now, but I really can't see why we should stay in lockdown a few more weeks

@RunningNinja79, the argument is until a vaccine or therapeutics are developed (and I know neither are guaranteed, especially vaccine, I have more hope medications to stop the illness getting severe in some will be found) a well run testing, contact tracing and isolating system is the best chance of keep the cases reasonably low level. Also it will allow the epidemiologists to identify which areas have higher cases and respond accordingly for that particular area. For this to work first the system needs to be in place and reports say that though the government are supposedly working on it it is not ready yet and secondly the cases need to get to a lower level and R number to work effectively.

[WeAllHaveWings]

Graph

[WeAllHaveWings]

The only figure that matters to me is the excess deaths. Every other figure is meaningless or can be inaccurate/presented to suit an agenda.

To me these graphs show it is not sufficiently under control in the UK.

[JimMaxwellantheshippingforcast]

@HairyFloppins

I love looking at the graphs from Peng

[ToffeeYoghurt]

And I'm not arguing for an ongoing strict lockdown. I want us to take the much needed extra two to three weeks (very short period of time in the grand scheme of things) to lockdown - and use that time wisely. Prepare for a safer easing. Quite simple measures, achieved by other countries. PPE, more testing including antibodies, drugs, masks, border restrictions. Job done. A safer way out that avoids many more needless deaths and further economic damage.

Good luck paying your mortgage in a bad second wave or prolonged first wave with all the economic disruption that causes.

[ToffeeYoghurt]

Book That would only protect me. I'm concerned about other people. Some might be happy to keep Othering large groups. I'm not. And actually I can't protect myself. Not financially. Not completely. The economic damage caused by failing to tackle the pandemic will affect all of us. Some of us are better placed perhaps to ride the storm but again I care about others too.

[RunningNinja79]

There's only really been one measure lifted. We can go out for the day and not just for exercise.

The people being encouraged to go back to work could always work.
There has never been a limit to the amount of time you could exercise and the amount of times you went out was just in the guidelines, it wasn't enforceable. The hour rule was a load of nonsense spouted about here and there, it was never mentioned in any government guidance.

Same with driving somewhere to exercise. That was allowed too. Only now you dont have to exercise more than driving.

Schools going back isn't for another 2 weeks at the earliest so 3 weeks since the last announcement. Plus if the unions (not necessarily the teachers) get their way it wont be for a bit longer anyway.

Also as PP have said our cases aren't going down as fast because we are testing more and more people all the time. The percentage of postive Vs negatives has changed I assume. Not anything I've seen, but simple maths. Test 30 thousand people and get 4 thousand positives is 13.3333333% positive. Test 100 thousand people and get 4 thousand positive is 4% positive.

This virus is going nowhere not unless there's a cure or a vaccine. There are other things to consider. OK so I'm not saying we should all go back to normal now, but I really can't see why we should stay in lockdown a few more weeks

[Bool]

@ToffeeYoghurt nobody is preventing you doing a harder stricter lockdown. The rest of us need to pay our mortgages