Why has london had so few cases recently?

[yearinyearout]

What's going on here? The other day only 24 new cases, then 19, then none. I've read the news and it's not making sense to me, unless loads of people have had it and created some kind of herd immunity why is this so low?

I suspect you're right about the housing factor @Gmom except that the deprivation relates to the very many who can't afford to rent. Forget buying. Too many are crammed into overcrowded poor quality insecure private rentals. It has a major impact on health.

Brazil currently has a high number of cases. Flights from there continue to arrive at Heathrow. No checks or quarantine before passengers head off to their UK destinations on public transport. It will be hugely surprising if London's R rate doesn't increase again. Elsewhere too given presumably at least some of the airport arrivals won't be staying in London.

I live in Wales and have several friends working in hospitals and they are saying all deaths in hospitals are being recorded as Covid even if they died of other causes. Also there was a recent RTA in the local community and there has been a big story in the papers, the guy killed at the scene on a motorbike has Covid on his death certificate. Maybe the opposite is happening in London, all deaths being reported as something else???

As in, they are hiding Covid?

I doubt that.

Divebar

What makes you think Northerners have any desire to visit that London?

Chillipeanuts

It was a joke dontcha know - following on from numerous threads where Londoners were called out for allegedly visiting their second homes.

They found only 17% of Londoners had already had it in antibody tests, so London is clearly a very long way off the mythical herd immunity yet.

It's also not true that hardly anyone has had a new case of the virus recently in London - if testing numbers show a very low number of cases, that will be because hardly anyone is being tested. The government has suspiciously decided to stop publishing figures for the numbers of people tested just as we move into reducing lockdown, so we can't see how pisspoor the testing strategy is and how non-existent the evidence base is for reducing lockdown.

I have had a close relative in hospital in London recently and all the A&Es at numerous local hospitals were FULL - they had to end up in a central London hospital as all the many local hospitals had no space left. That would not be happening, needless to say, if there were no cases or just a handful of new cases, in London.

We are being fed a load of lies for political reasons, I'm afraid.

It is not in Londoners' interests to reduce lockdown, that's for sure. Some billionaires or foreign powers may benefit if Londoners return to work and R shoots up again. Londoners certainly won't.

Diamonds - the excess death figures show your imaginary friends' claims are untrue.

The excess death figures - which cannot be fudged - show clearly that far more people are dying from Covid than are being reported on death certs.

Lol at accusing people of having imaginary friends while talking about your imaginary friend who claims A and Es in London are full of COVID and it's being covered up

London's ICUs are not in danger of being overwhelmed at present.

But they are running close to full. And hospitals have in some cases tripled ICU capacity in recent months. There wasn't a corresponding increase in the number of intensivists and ICI nurses (because you can't just magic them up) so it has been gruelling for the staff that are the most needed; as well as gruelling in many different ways to all the others who have been repurposed into intensive care for the duration.

Hospitals did a phenomenally good job in rapidly repurposing to cope with infection disease, in ICU, in A&E and in wards. The need for this capacity isn't going to go away, but a period of relative calm, to work out how best 'normal' services can co-exist with a continuing infectious disease capacity, would be welcome.

As would enough stabilisation to let the staff who have been hardest pressed, have some proper time off

A lot of the London wards that opened for Covid have now shut. I know several staff who were redeployed to those wards who have been stood down.

Unfortunately we've been to A&E recently at 11pm on a Sat night. The last time I went pre-Covid I was there 6 hours. This time we were one of a handful in A&E. Overwhelmed they were not!

Brazil currently has a high number of cases. Flights from there continue to arrive at Heathrow.

The vast majority of which are cargo only.

How do you know @notimagain? Have you got a link to the figures confirming that?
Hundreds of thousands of unchecked unquarantined international travellers arrived at our airports through our apparent lockdown. They continue to do so. People,not cargo.

Maybe they are more likely to wear masks? Seen more in London than in my local area.

Maybe there has been a herd immunity factor? Can't wait for some random accurate antibody testing to be done.

How do you know @notimagain? Have you got a link to the figures confirming that?

I don't have all the airport' figures, but I know for certain that at least one major LHR based airline's Long Haul flights have been totally, or almost totally cargo only for some time, and that includes their flights from Brazil. Flight arrivals boards and the tracking apps are not giving the complete picture - flights don't always equal people.

One link can give you which reflects the reality of what I have been witnessing every working day is this:

thebasource.com/

@effingterrified London hospitals are in no way full. Wards are closed as not needed.
I know as I live in Central London and have many friends who are nurses/doctors/hospital staff in local hospitals. Don't talk nonsense.

The excess death figures - which cannot be fudged - show clearly that far more people are dying from Covid than are being reported on death certs

Why are we assuming all the excess deaths are from covid? I would suggest that while we haven't had nearly as many from RTAs or general outside crime, we will have had a lot more from conditions that would otherwise have been treated, from suicides and from domestic violence.

As for flights from Brazil, there are 90% less passenger flights currently and those are carrying a lot of freight.

Hundreds of thousands of unchecked unquarantined international travellers arrived at our airports through our apparent lockdown no they did not

[quote Duckyneedsaclean]@effingterrified London hospitals are in no way full. Wards are closed as not needed.
I know as I live in Central London and have many friends who are nurses/doctors/hospital staff in local hospitals. Don't talk nonsense.[/quote]
Aside from Southwark it was largely London's outer boroughs that have been worse affected. A central London hospital might not represent the situation in greater London.

@cologne4711

The excess death figures - which cannot be fudged - show clearly that far more people are dying from Covid than are being reported on death certs

Why are we assuming all the excess deaths are from covid? I would suggest that while we haven't had nearly as many from RTAs or general outside crime, we will have had a lot more from conditions that would otherwise have been treated, from suicides and from domestic violence.

As for flights from Brazil, there are 90% less passenger flights currently and those are carrying a lot of freight.

Hundreds of thousands of unchecked unquarantined international travellers arrived at our airports through our apparent lockdown no they did not

Oh yes they did. The government confirmed it a couple of weeks ago. I believe it was Matt Hancock who stated we'd had a minimum of 95,000 arrive during our apparent lockdown. No checks, no quarantine.

10% is still quite a lot of passengers. Several hundred perhaps? Coming from a very infected place and heading off on busy public transport.

Then there's Sweden. There were four flights from Stockholm into Heathrow yesterday. Clearly still busy enough.

I posted on another thread the same. Hundreds of thousands of international arrivals.

Note most countries either closed their borders or implemented checks and quarantine. Proper quarantine so not like our planned (from 8 June) head from the airport on public transport and only then send isolate.

fullfact.org/immigration/coronavirus-lockdown-arrivals-infections/

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/13/95000-have-entered-uk-from-abroad-during-coronavirus-lockdown

For those who want left right balance, it was reported in the mail too.