Is there any evidence that the "idiots" on beaches etc did actually cause spread?

[LaceCurtains]

I wasn't one of them, I can't think of anything less fun than sitting on a crowded beach and I have beautiful walking country close to home, but what they did seemed to be within the rules. They were told they could travel as much as they like and be outdoors anywhere, as long as 2m apart. It would be unusual to sit closer than 2m from a stranger, even on a busy beach.

Other people seemed so cross with them, but they were only doing what they were told was OK, so be cross with government, if you must. However, if there hasn't been a related spike, doesn't that prove that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the trips or the advice?

If it had caused a problem over BH weekend, wouldn't we be seeing a big increase in hospital admissions/deaths by now?

And if we aren't doesn't that mean mass outdoor events might be OK to go ahead?

the number of cases increasing is hard on the people who get the virus but not necessarily a major problem if they are not seriously affected. To get the figures for that you need to look at hospital admissions and they typically come a week after people are affected, so maybe 2 weeks after the rush to the beaches.

Unfortunately the government has stopped the weekend press conferences and not published the data on hospital admissions, so too early to tell if severe cases are increasing. We should have a better idea on Monday.

No evidence the virus is weakening but if people are shielding and those shielding are not on the beaches then any increases should be
a lot smaller than the first wave.

Slothsarecreepy - unless and until I see evidence of effective community testing, tracking and tracing, I will take all “confident” pronouncements with a pinch of salt, tbh. Confident is not a word I associate with any aspect of the handling of this pandemic.

Area A if you have only 20 cases then you have 23 the R rate goes up hugely but you have only 3 new cases and only 23 altogether

Area B if you have a 200 cases and you then have 203 your R rate is barely any different but you still have loads more cases than area A even if it goes from 200 to 220 your R rate is still lower than area A even though you have 20 new caes to their 3
Area B hospital is more likely to be struggling than area A hospital even though R is much higher than in B this is why R rate is so misleading when relatively small numbers so an very large area like the highlands of Scotland has had 2 new cases in the past week but this is more or less the same as the week before so R rate isn't changing but in terms of actual cases there have only been 330 since March in total, the number of new infections in Glasgow is down on previous week now only 70 new ones so there is a big drop in R rate compared to highland but Highland has loads and loads less cases and virtually no one in Hospital

@slothsarecreepy, I didn't know that; thanks for enlightenment. It's been reported here on Spotlight but without that particular little nugget of fact . Aren't journos wonderful?!

Transmission outside is less likely, but mass gatherings should still be avoided. This is a really interesting article about Coronavirus transmission:
www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/coronavirus-covid19-exposure-risk-catching-virus-germs?fbclid=IwAR2Q3hzC6CCLNg64mpCyHgFM88G6_M_g8r4RDs3B-tUKD4hcjXPGEsV98W0

If lots of people being together doesn't cause a rise why did lockdown cause a decrease? Or didn't it?

I don't think going to the beach increases the chances of the virus spreading in any significant way. Jumping into the sea from a great height or leaving your rubbish and bodily fluids everywhere are different issues that people have every right to get annoyed about.

Going into Central London (or another big city) for a BAME protest is far more likely to cause a problem.

However, it does depend on people being infected and after weeks of lockdown, the chances must be quite slim.

How 'together" do you need to be though? There must surely be a big difference between being in a packed pub or tube train and sitting a metre or two away from peope on the beach?

you can only get covid from someone that has it and is out and about, the rate in population is now hought to be about 0.1% down from 0.25% a few weeks ago this equates to 1 in 1000 people being infected the other 999 don't have it, let's say half the infected people know they have symptoms and stay home and the other half are at present asymptomatic and are out and about so now 1 in 2000 people you met have covid so at a demonstration of 10,000 people there will be on average 5 postive covid people, given that it was outside and lots were wearing masks your chances of being close to one of the 5 long enough to have inhaled it even through masks in sufficient quantities to make you ill are really quite small, ( assuming getting really ill rate is 10% [1 in 20,000] and death is 1 % [1 in 200,00] the risks are still small though for young and fit which most demonstrators were the risks are lower still) the same would apply on a beach this is why you won't really see a spike

lots of people being together doesn't cause a rise why did lockdown cause a decrease

Lots of people being together does cause a rise but the difference is between tens of thousands going somewhere like the Cheltenham festival and being in enclosed/small spaces and 200 on a beach, which will look like a lot, but isn't really. Ditto the 3000 in Brockley park whereupon the council closed it, even though it was 3000 over the course of a day and they were well spaced as the park is large.

I don't think the majority of crowds on beaches were locals so maybe the spike won't happen locally, I mean if the visitors came from Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester etc maybe there are lots of mini spikes in various cities because of the beaches but they aren't high enough to be significant.

I think the visitors to beaches probably were, on the whole, at least "localish". Maybe not within walking distance but I dont think "most" people had driven hours to get there.

A great many people were cross about the beach visitors but not necessarily about the possibility of their spreading the virus.
What made some people really cross was that they came when they were told nothing was open - so there were no toilets or car parks open, and no lifeguard cover on the beaches. The result of that was that roads were blocked to emergency vehicles, by people parking on double yellow lines, and the beach was used as the toilet.

My: this is a popular topic! 4 Pages already.
My first job was in a lab working with bacteria that affects food.
The scientists seemed to spend more time working to keep the cultures alive for long enough to test. I always remember that.
We did not work with viruses.

People at Cheltenham were packed literally shoulder to shoulder for extended periods of time, and periodically screaming at the top of their voice. They were also rammed together in the queues at the bar.

Beachgoers simply aren’t. What looks like a “crowded” beach will normally still have noticeable gaps between each family group, and they won’t have been going into bars and restaurants. Brushing briefly against someone on an overcrowded pavement on your way to the beach or getting a bit too close in the queue for the ice cream van isn’t zero risk, and the associated anti-social behaviour sounds really grim, but it’s not the same level of risk as a crowded race meeting with all the bars open.

Just from my own observations , family involvement and knowledge of our local hospital admissions it seems that to get infected you must have been with an infected person for a long period and possibly repeatedly .
Cheltenham being an outdoor activity is a red herring as the vast majority of people attending arrived via coach and train.
130,00 travelled by train that day. Being on a train for hours each way in the company of drunk strangers is a great way to catch a virus during a pandemic. Once there ,many headed for the bars and restaurants and saw very little of the racing but were crammed into close quarters with more strangers.

Its more of a wonder that there werent a massive amount of infections as a direct result of Cheltenham alone. Granted ,there was an increase but it wasnt the explosion that should have happened if we believe the media.

A lot of the outrage was because they were all Non Locals.That being the case then a 'local' spike isn't what we'd see. The Hordes Of Infectious Non-Locals would have all gone away to spread it in all directions, no?

You are looking at it way too simplistically. I live in a coastal town that relies very much on tourist income. Many, many jobs are dependent on tourist income - not just hotels but local attactions, cafes, restaurants, ice cream sellers, cleaners etc. We are a couple of months into the summer season where trade is all but absent. We saw hundreds come into the town over the bank holiday and many businesses opened. I expect the income was welcomed (and needed) but the simple fact of that matter is, if the virus has been passed on, it isn't only a one way process, is it? We might give it to you but you can also give it to us.

Our local hospital chief does an update weekly through local media. Our numbers never quite came down and are most definitely on the up at the moment. Now, whether we can blame that on tourists, VE day, Boris or even God himself, I don't know. But there is local demand to close us down to tourists (including asking for check points in and out to see if people are travelling unncessarily) for the forseeable. I suspect that comes from those of us, in the main part, who don't get our incomes from tourists, but there is fear and things are very much on a knife-edge. If our numbers increase and people still blindly come and forget that they will need to go in cafes, bars, pick up ice creams etc., we will most definitely be spreading the virus far and wide, won't we?

Cheltenham probably also caused a spike in Ireland. Without decent contract tracing impossible to know exactly how many were infected there and took it back to their homes, where it would not always be identified as having come from Cheltenham.

I don't think going to the beach increases the chances of the virus spreading in any significant way.

After weeks of lockdown, most people weren't contagious, so there's the chance that no-one on the beach was contagious, hence no one would catch it. It's basically a "one off" in a very safe point of time.

If people hadn't been in lock down, then dozens may have been contagious and hundreds may have caught it. That's the way exponential growth works.

The last couple of weeks were the worst during the heatwave. Not long enough for a spike to properly occur. It'd be more in another couple of weeks in which time if there is one it'd be blamed on these (extremely ill advised) protests anyway.

The cases in Weston started around 2 weeks after the beach was invaded.

*It takes around 7-14 days to show symptoms so I guess the beach goers who caught it will only now be finding that out.

The protesters this weekend*

It's not just this weekend though is it? For a week now they've took to the streets of London ignoring social distancing.

"The cases in Weston started around 2 weeks after the beach was invaded."

All the cases or just people presenting to hospital? In that case, the timing would suggest it was spread by the beach goers wouldn't it?

All the cases or just people presenting to hospital? In that case, the timing would suggest it was spread by the beach goers wouldn't it?

The seasides like Weston started to get swarmed by visitors when Boris opened the country up during the VE Day conga bank holiday weekend. It certainly didn't help rates in towns like Weston.

@MadameMarie

The last couple of weeks were the worst during the heatwave. Not long enough for a spike to properly occur. It'd be more in another couple of weeks in which time if there is one it'd be blamed on these (extremely ill advised) protests anyway.

It's now four weeks since VE Day though and still no sign of a spike. Similar circumstances to the beaches - people who had been locked down, in close proximity, outside. Case numbers were lower by the time people hit the beaches than they were on VE Day. If VE Day didn't result in a spike, I can't see anything to suggest that either beach crowds or protestors will.