Will Kent need more measures than tier 4 to get this under control?

[YuleAreBeingUnREASTIEable]

I’ve been keeping an eye on the stats and have been wondering for a few weeks what’s up with Kent. It was relatively under control compared to other areas, but numbers rose during lockdown 2 and have never stopped since. Despite being in tier 3, cases have continued rising. I couldn’t work out exactly why this was and assumed it was either general lack of compliance to the rules or spread in schools. It now seems it was also this spready variant.

Matt Hancock said today they had been watching Kent with concern because lockdown 2 didn’t bring down the stats and so it was not effective enough against the new type.

So, does this mean in Kent we could see further measures to tier 4 (which is pretty much lockdown 2 where cases continued rising)? More strict restrictions, maybe schools being online for a while? Or am I totally missing something. Maybe it was a compliance issue, and now they’ve scared the bejeezers out of everyone they will stay home in fear.

Which would make sense for why it was initially Kent that had the issue which then spread to the SE

The new strain supposedly started in England.

I feel for Kent, cases rising rapidly and a potential no deal Brexit. It has the potential to go very wrong, very quickly.

I think schools will have to go to online learning.

I hope these are the only measures, I live in Kent 😫

This is a lie, it's evolved in the UK!

This was discussed on the news earlier. It's thought to be from Europe, and this is thought to be why infection has suddenly exploded in other European countries, with the variance having been identified here due to additional sequencing capacity.

To be fair, they may be lying or the theory could be wrong, but I don't think they are.

I'm in Kent. It definitely feels like cases are rising. In the last week 5 of my friends have had someone in their family test positive. All have been quite sensible, WFH, not going out, not seeing friends, etc... But they all have DC at various schools.

I think it will either need regular testing in schools to weed out the asymptotic cases or a dreaded return to home learning.

I guess what happens over the next two weeks is key. If it doesn’t slow down what else can you do?

What else can they do? Other than imposing a Wuhan style lockdown and nailing people’s front door shut.

Initially I think it was Swale that pushed up the kent figures - possibly because of an outbreak in prisons (or so I heard). In my little corner of Kent it was really low. But in the last two weeks there’s a definite sense of it rising.

We caught it from dd at school

Also asymptomatic cases at school

I think this is how it is spreading

From what I remember R was about 0.6 during the first lockdown. If this new variant adds 0.4 to it (and its early days to know but that is the first estimate) then that would mean even with lockdown like April cases still wouldn’t drop!

I’m praying that the vaccine works quickly, and that part of the increase was poor compliance during the November lockdown.

I'm in south east Kent. Been working throughout.
I have a bad feeling I'll get covid over xmas.
Perhaps I've been to shops too much or not distancing enough.
I do wash hands and sanitize often and avoid opening parcels for 3 days. But slipped a little with that recently.

Boat landings? Meaning asylum seekers?

Do people understand there is a ferry port in Kent through which more than 2.5 million HGVs pass every year? And if anything that's likely to be higher now given the state of things at Felixstowe.

Dominic Raab under fire over Dover-Calais comments
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46142188

Felixstowe Port in 'chaos' as Christmas and Brexit loom
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54908129

Couple of dozen asylum seekers are unlikely to make much difference, and from the off there's presumably as much chance that we've exported it on all this lorry traffic as that we've imported? We may even have been importing and exporting it, cos two-way traffic.

(I appreciate that ferries coming into Dover are indeed "boat-landings from Calais", but as the ferries arrive more than 20 times daily, that doesn't sound like what the the PP is refering to in "recent landings".)

It's rampant here in Kent, we're in one of the most affected areas.... DD had 3 SI back to back then her school had to close. And numbers are still going up
Been put today for food, plus other bits.... had to laugh when the pharmacist who served me had his mask down, not covering his nose!

I also heard this was partly due to an outbreak in a prison there.

I think Essex has overtaken Kent with the most cases and biggest increase in transmission rate. Let's hope it can be confined to the South East but I think that's unlikely. I think I read that the increase in cases in Wales is also related to the new strain?

I (necessarily) drove up the M2 today from Ashford to Medway.

It was very busy. Lots of non-UK registered lorries and cars full of people that had most likely come off a ferry...plus returning Brits from holidays etc. Add in Eurostar and we have a lot of people arriving and heading into or through Kent.

I don’t think people here are any worse than anywhere else. We have the very careful and the terminally stupid 🤷🏻‍♀️.

Why Kent in particular? I thought there were loads of bad places in the SE? Is Kent higher than Basildon in Essex?

@PerkingFaintly

(I appreciate that ferries coming into Dover are indeed "boat-landings from Calais", but as the ferries arrive more than 20 times daily, that doesn't sound like what the the PP is refering to in "recent landings".)

That's right - the reason it would be significant is, if unoffical immigration was a source of importation, we wouldn't have the option to close borders to reduce incoming covid. I don't know what the answer would be, but it would really limit any management options.

This thread has become weirdly jingoistic. Even the Sun agrees "With no concrete evidence so far explaining how and where it comes from, it can only be assumed to have emerged in England — because that was where most of the known cases were originally reported. "

www.thesun.co.uk/news/13532260/where-new-strain-covid-why-more-contagious/

It came from Italy.