Cases dropping in my tier 4 area. Why?

[Mousehole10]

After a massive rise the last couple of weeks in my tier 4 area cases have just started going down. We have been in tier 4 since before Christmas so 9 days, and schools have been out since the 18th so 11 days. Which has had the biggest impact? I'm thinking schools because tier 4 hasn't made that much difference from tier 3.

I think it’s schools. In the Nov lockdown cases kept going up in my area (Kent) only stabilising the first week of Dec then started climbing again. They’re now dropping.
We’ve also had asymptomatic testing and the uptake has been quite high so hopefully with cases now being identified and isolating that’s hopefully helping to drive down the spread.

Yes similar here, cases were rising here by the end of the November lockdown so they didn’t help. We haven’t had asymptotic testing in this area so it’s not that. It must be schools!

People also off work ... children off school usually means parents are not all at work. Also, some people may have reduced mixing in order to see family members.

I also think some people will have buried their heads in the sand about symptoms so they could travel over Christmas, whereas if they had been tested and positive wouldn’t have felt they could go.