Over two weeks since The Big Reopening...

[TheVampiresWife]

...and so far, the carnage predicted by some on MN has not come to pass. Indeed the opposite seems to be true. This from my local newspaper suggests that in the north east (where we had the highest rates in the UK just a few weeks ago) we're doing far better than was expected by this point. It's worth remembering that Newcastle is renowned as a party city and the clubs have been busy since they reopened at 12.01am on 19 July. We would definitely expect to be seeing a surge in infections by now, if it was going to happen.

And for those who will jump on to say that less testing/schools being off will skew the data - that's addressed in the article, and the proportional rate of infection/testing.

In my local area the rate was almost 1500/100k just three or four weeks ago, now it's less than 300. I'm sure the naysayers will be along shortly to tell us that the data is noisy/unreliable/not to be trusted, but let's hope all the predictions of 100k cases a day and 'calm before the storm' are wildly off. It certainly is looking that way.

@herecomesthsun

Are these people trolls?

Sajid Javid - last month - "this is uncharted territory...As we ease and go into the summer, we expect [case rates] to rise. They could go as high as 100,000"

Boris Johnson - previously "said that daily cases could hit 50,000 on July 19"

No - but people who claimed that according to their own calculations/projections cases would hit 100k a day by 21 June, then 19 July when that didn't happen, might be. Posters who say that there's a 'let the bodies pile up lot' who are happy to let people die on MN might be. Those who use phrases like 'mark my words' and say that museums are breeding grounds for long covid might be.