Amateur Epidemiologists

[timetobackout]

Can someone explain to me,how the number of new covid cases in London has declined to less than 100 per day over the last week or so, whilst the number has increased in several other areas such as the North East,North Wales, Somerset etc. Although obviously London started from a higher base, surely the same lockdown rules should lead to a decline in every area not an increase. Could it have anything to do with the fact that London has had an estimated 17% infection rate compared with 5% in the rest of the country.

If people caught out later and then passed to family then their hospital admissions will come a bit later. Those most at risk also arguably caught it already in London, but not in other areas, so there's some catch-up. Also more care homes are outside London and generally the population of London is younger; this all affects the numbers needing treatment.

17% really isn't close to the concept of herd immunity.

If all UK is 5%, and London is 17%, then is rest of country much smaller than 5%? Given London is nearly 15% of UK population.

Because actually everybody is guessing. They've already got the modelling wrong on a number of occasions, and nobody can be certain what exactly is going on. We didn't test soon enough and we haven't yet got antibody tests - and even when we do it will take time to roll them out to anything other than a small part of the population. It is highly unlikely to be true, but for all we know, everybody could have had it by now. I don't believe that's true, but there is no actual evidence to prove it isn't true.

When anything new like this occurs, there is only one position from which anyone gets certainty. Hindsight. Or does nobody else recall the "500,000 people in the UK could die" headlines of only a few weeks ago?

When anything new like this occurs, there is only one position from which anyone gets certainty. Hindsight.

This is exactly what Whitty said a few weeks ago.