Number of cases in March

[Realitea]

In March, how many cases do you think were in the uk?
Have there been any studies to suggest what the number might have been?

To say the government did nothing is ridiculous. We locked down by rate of infection and deaths, earlier than many other European countries, including (the whole of) Italy

I'd argue that Sunaks budget (11th of March), with its massive spending and provision was ground breaking and world leading. A budget Labour could have only dreamed of.

Italy was the first country in Europe to be hit, and hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Nobody is saying that the UK govt did nothing, but they had foresight- they could see what was happening first in Italy, then in Spain.
So what was done, should have been earlier and better.

I actually like Boris as a bloke. He's a very poor communicator. So often his messages, while correct in and of themselves, don't get put across the way they should. The Mothers Day speech for example - he said he was hoping to see his mother. Joe Public then thinks "well if he can..." Only when pressed does that change to "on Skype obviously" And I do believe that, and he shouldn't have to explain to us how or where he sees his mother...BUT he is the one putting the words out there to be misconstrued.

Sorry, the losing loved ones verbatim was:
"Many more families are going to lose loved ones"
Not "some of us are going to"

Arguably worse.

To say the government did nothing is ridiculous

To say they got it very wrong in early March is fair though. Just across the sea Ireland was limiting gatherings, cancelling St Patrick day celebrations and closing schools while we were still carrying on as pretty much normal. We had Spain, Italy and France all very much in the grip of covid so there was no excuse for not paying attention to what was on the horizon.

I’m not a fan of this government but I will give them credit for arranging provision for the country during lockdown and balancing measures coming out of it but to pretend they’ve got it right from the start is beyond me. This isn’t just armchair politicking - we could see what was going on in countries around us and our government failed to follow their lead.

I know this is not what the thread is about but we could start numerous threads on mistakes other countries, governments and citizens, made. But easy to forget just how quickly this damn thing spread

Poor Italy and Spain were taken unawares and would have a very steep sudden spike. Bergamo especially. No one, and I would include China in this, knew just how infectious the virus was. It was all about formite transmission back then. That the virus might be spread airborne, as in measles, eas only being suggested by a few scientists and largely dismissed

We had the WHO telling us on the 12th of February that the virus was 'stabilised in China' . The first death, a visitor, in Europe was on the 14th. But unknown at the time the virus had already taken hold and was incubating across the continent.

We've learnt so much more since March

It was interesting that when local schoolchildren were skiing in Italy, the concern here was which resorts were "safe" for the kids to go to. Nobody seemed to realise that nowhere was safe, and the disease could easily come back with the schoolchildren. It is easy to see how the community was seeded with the virus, we knew so little.

Thanks scorpio it is so true that Boris waffles so much he does lack clarity at times!

Just across the sea Ireland...

Yes and that was the correct way to proceed for Ireland at the time, as we know now, but the UK is not Ireland (a population lower than Yorkshire).

For the UK to lock down was a huge task, involving a large population, international travel hubs and large urban infrastructure, devolved parliaments etc.

I think the country the UK resembled was France. Similar timelines and lockdowns. The virus spread across the continent at different times. We were only a few days behind France.

@flaxmeadow, you’re talking like our lockdown took months to plan and initiate, it didn’t though did it? There was plenty of support for stricter measures earlier but that wasn’t what the government opted to do.

I’m not rewriting history here, the government failed to take action early enough at a time it would have been perfectly reasonable to do so.

(Sorry for the derail @Realitea)

you’re talking like our lockdown took months to plan and initiate, it didn’t though did it? There was plenty of support for stricter measures earlier but that wasn’t what the government opted to do.

My post was about a comparison made with Ireland, and how different the countries. The UK (23rd March) locked down before Ireland (26th) anyway

Me, dh and mil were all ill early March. At the time couldn’t get a test as I had no known contact with someone who had tested positive and hadn’t been to any of the countries on the list. Went to GP, had no chest problems, no visible signs of infection in ears/throat. Felt like sinuses were blocked as had no smell/taste but that wasn’t yet a recognised symptom. I had a temp of 40.3 that was coming down to about 39.5 with paracetamol. GP gave me antibiotics due to high temp just in case but had no idea what it was. I was ill for about 10days, had nausea, diarrhoea and lost appetite. All these things are now recognised symptoms. DH had fatigue for a few days but no temp, MIL who was staying with us at the time had a cough and fatigue. Kids were totally fine.

I really think it was Covid as it turns out another parent in next street was ill with it and hadn’t known initially. I know lots of parents in the area who also had weird symptoms same as me, we’d all been to a school quiz night together. DH has recently had an antibody test through work but it came back negative, although he wasn’t particularly ill, just felt very tired and had a day on the sofa, plus this is 4m later.

Am so annoyed I wasn’t able to get tested at the time.

@Flaxmeadow but they closed schools, limited gatherings and encouraged working from home on the 12th March. Our public transport was still packed and there were no restrictions on gatherings like pubs, concerts etc.

And the population comparison is a red herring. We managed it perfectly well when we finally did do it.

but they closed schools, limited gatherings and encouraged working from home on the 12th March. Our public transport was still packed and there were no restrictions on gatherings like pubs,concerts etc

But the UK also took measures before locking down. Each country took measures appropriate to them

The UK and Ireland are completely different countries

... and there were no restrictions on gatherings like pubs, concerts etc.

There was (UK)

The shaking hands quote [3rd March]

Angela Merkel the day before;

www.itv.com/news/2020-03-02/angela-merkel-handshake-rejected-as-coronavirus-cases-reach-150-in-germany/

The Dutch PM a week later;

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-51820520/coronavirus-dutch-pm-tells-nation-not-to-shake-hands-then-does

See this is the issue.
We constantly see headlines about second spikes etc. But when you see sensible folk who have worked out averages, so the number of tests and number of positives as a result, bar a few notable exceptions, we are not doing too bad all things considered.

I personally think the country would benefit greatly from a local breakdown of average cases compared to current testing rates, numbers of recovered and current hospital admissions.
We are, finally, doing the type of rapid testing we should have done throughout. And we are especially targeting areas where there have been sudden increases, so if you go looking then of course you will find cases.
We're not there yet, but we are doing far better than the media will have you believe.

There are some of the measures the UK before lockdown. From my previous post page 1

1st March gov bring back retired NHS staff
5th first UK death
11th Sunak budget giving huge spending on covid related issues
15th over 70s to self isolate
16th avoid non essential travel
19th announce pubs, gyms, restaurants, cinemas to close
23rd strict lockdown in place

I think we have to remember that initial modelling in all western countries did not predict the rapid spread that happened. Europe was expecting cases in March but the early modelling indicated a peak in May or June. It was based on the known science and data being shared from China.

Then data started to come out of Italy and Imperial did their modelling. That’s when everything changed. If you have ever seen the modelling it was very accurate in what did happen. It put forward a number of options to delay with recommends these were implemented in sequence. As it happened a lot of these were brought forward, specifically school closures.

In my opinion the rich countries in the west tried to delay as long as possible simply because they had health systems and ICUs that could cope. We learnt the hard way that mass testing was needed more than ventilators or nightingales. Only Germany really coped. Other less wealthy countries without good health systems shut down and closed borders ASAP. They were right in that they couldn’t even try.

Our scientists are being very clear that they don’t know enough about the effectiveness of measures needed to break transmission so that this is a disease we can live with. They do know the impacts of the measures on the economy, general health and education.

The UK did lead the pack in its response to what was happening in Spain. But the public and media reaction was scary and minimising. Only an idiot calls for 2 weeks notice of a contaminants measure. But they were screaming it from the rooftops.

When Armani said they would hold their runway show behind closed doors at Milan Fashion Week in February and the Northern Italy lockdown began our boss said "if its there, it's here, we all ski in the same Alps.

And we've been working at home ever since.

I I think Cheltenham Festival and the Cardiff Stereophonics gig were three or four weeks after that. Maybe ten days before lockdown?

By the time it had hit Italy really bad we'd already had school coaches full of children spending half term there skiing.

It had already come back but because children do seem to be less symptomatic it wasn't noticed.

One if the sage reports I read indicated they weren't aware that community transmission was as high as it was as early as it was.

Lack of testing was one of the reasons for this.

But then we also didn't know to test asymptomatic people and we've only recently learnt approx 40% of people are asymptomatic.

The government have made mistakes. Huge mistakes. But it's not productive to blame them for the things they couldn't for see and didn't know.

Also care homes around here had stopped admitting visitors 2 weeks before lockdown. There was an issue re the sending patients home but they aren't wrong that shielding care homes was one of the first things they did. They didn't do it right but they didn't just deliberately throw them under a bus.

Anyone hazard a guess using the figures of deaths, using death rate and using estimated figures what total number of people could possibly have had covid already?

Interestingly if you look at deaths in march and now. The death total for week up to 20th march was less than the weekly death total this week

Interestingly if you look at deaths in march and now. The death total for week up to 20th march was less than the weekly death total this week

Yes and then shortly after that the numbers exploded

Has anyone else noticed that in the forum we are talking again the way we did back then?

@Flaxmeadow

Interestingly if you look at deaths in march and now. The death total for week up to 20th march was less than the weekly death total this week

Yes and then shortly after that the numbers exploded

Has anyone else noticed that in the forum we are talking again the way we did back then?

Yes i think things are about to explode again, although, for those who dont look at the data they dont see an issue so they are out mixing more than ever right now.

There are some important differences between now and March. We know now that deaths are a historical reflection of infections since covid deaths are not typically quick. We also now have a much better picture of the where outbreaks are occurring hence local lockdowns. We also have a better understanding of treatment.

Don’t forget the aim is still not to overwhelm health services with the side effect that less people become infected not no one will ever get it.

The numbers aren’t what I’d like to see either and are still concerning but we’re not in the same situation as March, not that I think that it would be impossible. It’s a fine line we’re walking,