Slough. Coventry. Stoke on trent... Dh just had a thought.

[Family1st2020]

They are all near big theme type parks. Big gatherings. Not much SD etc. ( he and ds went to Thorpe Park and was manic when they went like a normal day)

Does he have a point?

I have no energy to discuss with him. But said I'd ask in here.

Thorpe Park is in Chertsey. Nowhere near Slough.

Our am I missing something here?

TP is about 20 mins from Slough.

If TP were a significant source though, I'd expect a big impact to be felt wider than just on Slough, and that's not really the case.

It's also mostly outside, so TBH I'm not sure it's really going to be driving up cases in such a localised manner - visitors will come from a wide circle around them.

@FamilyOfAliens

Thorpe Park is in Chertsey. Nowhere near Slough.

Our am I missing something here?

The OP was only using Thorpe Park as an example of poor practice. Plenty of Legoland employees live in Slough.

Correlation does not prove causation though.

Also Slough is on the M4 corridor, near to the airport, lots of business travel. Not sure Thorpe Park can really be considered a factor.

There isn’t really a big theme park in coventry - unless you are thinking about Drayton manor which is about 40 minutes drive away

Quite a lot of people in Slough work at Heathrow airport.

Legoland is near Slough and Alton Towers near Stoke - Drayton Manor is nearish Coventry but Tamworth is the nearest town - I think it's just coincidence- they are large conurbations - I think you'll find it's more to do with the relative poverty and housing overcrowding of those places rather than proximity to theme parks. Transmission of COVID-19 is harder outside.

Went to Thorpe park a couple of Mondays ago. It was pretty empty (in that we got to go on all the major rides with zero queues and could stay on for a second go more often than not too).
Trust me, there were many more safety sanctions in operation there than in my school.

Coventry has 2 major universities and we're nowhere near a theme park.

Isn't it a multifactor thing, there won't be one underlying cause for an area having high covid rates? Each UK town and city is different. Some will have more of those many factors and some have fewer.

Drayton Manor must be around 20 miles from Coventry.

The Stoke on Trent area has two universities, Staffordshire and Keele.

I live about 3 miles from Drayton Manor and we are on level one with quite low levels.

The Stoke on Trent area has two universities, Staffordshire and Keele

Total student numbers: c. 25,000 combined.

Coventry student numbers: nearly 60,000 combined.

Slough is full of poverty with a large multi cultural population. Follows with the trend of other areas no?

We are close to Alton here in Stoke but I don’t think that’s the reason. I think staffs uni and keele are the main drivers. Cases here have always been fairly stable until schools and unis went back. Our local council leader asked for Stoke to go on tier 2. The neighbouring town is still tier 1, which is where keele is so I suspect people will just go there for a night out which the majority do anyway.

I live in Coventry. It’s not theme parks.
Our closest one is Drayton Manor and that’s in Tamworth. We have two large universities here, within close proximity. My area is the highest for cases, and I live next to Warwick Uni.

Coventry is very urban now so I’m not at all surprised we are now in tier 2.

My elderly Uncle and Auntie live in the Coventry region. It seems they and those they know are living as if Covid isn't around. I know they were allowed, but had visitors every 2/3 days, their DIL has told them they're all part of one big bubble which is ok (bubbles are meant to be for single people anyway). They met in a group of ten at a pub the other day, which apparently is ok as it was outside. My Uncle has had lung cancer in the past and is under investigation again. I don't feel people in their area (large village) are taking it seriously. We're in tier 1 further south and locals really are sticking well within the guidelines,

No - its not theme parks. Its universities and in Slough's case, deprivation/cultural living

There are many documents now that show which postcodes/areas are most affected in these towns. The above correlates with that

Slough is one of the more deprived areas of Berkshire. It also very multicultural and has crowded housing. I’m surprised it didn’t get hit sooner!

@starfish4

We are not really a region and there’s no villages in this city.

We ve been to theme parks every weekend since July when they reopened and they have loads of safety measures in place temperature checks, masks, regular closing and cleaning of rides and limited capacity so I can’t imagine they are responsible for high cases in these areas. Plus guests at theme parks are nt just from the surrounding areas, Alton towers take 10,000 a day people travel from miles around to visit.

Track and Trace look for patterns / overlap of where people have been and what they have been doing. If theme parks were an issue it would have flagged up.

Without sounding like an arse, and I know the government are hopeless, I think it's widely unlikely that anyone is going to just stumble upon The Answer because they 'had a thought'.

No, I don't think your DH has a point.

Cov will definitely be because of the universities (Coventry and Warwick). I’m in the next area over and lots of Warwick students live here - it’s making our cases go up too.

I tell you what they all have far more in common

Labour councils.

Windsor and Maidenhead have had huge numbers, for weeks on end. Months in fact.
Not out in tier 2 or 3 though.
Funny that.
Also a Tory borough.

That is your pattern.