Why is the UK getting more cases than France?

[TheYearOfSmallThings]

The UK started vaccinating before France, and there has been a lot of vaccine resistance in France. But their Delta wave was smaller, and continues to decline after peaking, whereas the UK's has plateaued. Life is fairly normal in both countries now.

I'm sure there is an explanation for this that I'm missing, and I'm hoping this board is the place to find it?

Are we testing relatively more, ie schools, therefore finding more cases?

Partly because we do double the amounts of tests than they do…. So we find more asympromatic cases. School children this week are an example. We are finding cases that would otherwise not be found.
Other than that statistical fact I am not sure of any other reasons.

I don't know the answer.
Excess deaths to end June suggest France has had fewer deaths overall, so total cases are likely to have genuinely been lower: www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker?gclid=Cj0KCQjw4eaJBhDMARIsANhrQACtTLCPEgsySgp50Ja5KO21-cqLjB6NR4uscfUi_iL4VJ1d94Ou7R8aAuoHEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds.

France has brought in tough measures to slow down the spread of Covid. There is a requirement to show a COVID passport to access such a wide range of venues, including restaurants, cafés, cinemas, theatres and shopping centres. The pass is also required on trains, planes and coaches. Applies for everyone over 12 years old.

Although they started later, France have vaccinated more people than we have.

Covid passports to access public venues, and more compulsory mask-wearing indoors may we’ll be having an impact. Secondary schools partially working online, I believe.

Also, everyone in France is wearing a mask indoors, on public transport, and even in densely packed outdoor areas with not a second thought. People just do it, it's the rule, but it's also seen as sensible.

France has now vaccinated more people. They have implemented (and enforce) a vaccine passport to get into restaurants, clubs etc etc. People are wearing masks - inside but also in busy outside areas (and they really are wearing masks with only genuine rather than self-decided exemptions).

France started vaccinating children aged 12+ from 15 June. As that age group socialise a lot, preventing cases in that age group through vaccination could potentially have a big impact.

They’ve never had the peaks that we had though. Even when we did a longer, harder lockdown. Did they even lockdown in Jan-March when we did? I think they just had a curfew?

It’s quite perplexing. The mask wearing/vaccine passport thing is recent.
Doesn’t explain the rest of the year.

I guess the Delta variant hit us harder.

I personally don’t think outdoor mask wearing would have much of an impact on figures. We know outdoor transmission is low.

Largely because we're doing more than double the numbers of tests, I suspect.

Our (current) average weekly deaths are in the same ball park as most similar countries yet our cases are sky high.

I don't think we should be doing daily counts of all cases anymore, personally. Most aren't relevant. I'm at home with Covid this week. But I'm 99% fit and well. There's no purpose to my case being included in statistics that make it seem like we're in a really scary place. If we recorded daily hospitalizations it would be a much clearer way of knowing how serious things are. I know you can be horribly I'll without needing to go to hospital but there's no way to quantify that.

Did delta ever get a proper hold there?

@Parker231

France has brought in tough measures to slow down the spread of Covid. There is a requirement to show a COVID passport to access such a wide range of venues, including restaurants, cafés, cinemas, theatres and shopping centres. The pass is also required on trains, planes and coaches. Applies for everyone over 12 years old.

This. Over 12s have been vaccinated. Or they’re being frequently tested if not (and home tests aren’t valid, someone medically-trained performs the tests).

Only medical-grade masks are accepted, and are still compulsory on public transport and anywhere indoors. Over 6s go to school in masks, they stay on all day long. Compliance is almost 100% because you can’t just declare yourself exempt.

It’s the same where I live. We also started vaccinating ‘late’ but after 9 months, the difference between starting first or last week in December 2020 is almost non-existent. Why do you think the French are ‘vaccine-resistant’? Because there was a protest in the news? If look at the numbers, they have a decent vaccination rate. If anything, I’d say the UK is ‘protective measures-resistant’.

I would guess it’s just the timing. We had loads of threads about how great the USA was over the summer abs how we should learn all our lessons from them…less so now…different countries hit peaks at different times I think

It’s amazing how masks work in france and not in Scotland for example…is it the accent do people think? Used to work in the USA too in the summer than stopped of course masks are strange they don’t always work ..only when a country has low rates but suddenly seem to stop for no reason!

France have vaccinated more people than we have.

Is that correct? Whatever I was looking at showed the UK fully vaccinated rate slightly higher.

I'm sure some is due to testing, because the infections were higher by a greater multiple than deaths. But deaths are still higher in the UK.

Maybe it is the stricter measures, although the French people I know are not especially compliant!

Did delta not get a grip there because they didn’t actually lockdown therefore another variant kept circulating/ bubbling away? Was it alpha?

Controversial but by locking down and suppressing the more mild strains then do you allow Delta to take more of a hold when you open up? Cases sky rocket as we saw here.

France never had any laws on families not mixing. I’m they couldn’t legally enforce it apparently.
They may have advised on numbers in indoor mixing but it really wasn’t as strict as we had...

I spent the last two months in France so missed the uk relaxation of restrictions- masks etc. It felt very strange suddenly to be back in the uk with no masks in the supermarket and not having to show a Covid app when you go into a restaurant. There is such a different perspective in France, it's everyone's social responsibility to keep restrictions in place, to keep everyone out of lockdowns. (Generally. Accepting there are always those that don't agree.)

In the UK there seems more a social responsibility to release everyone from responsibility. Just wish I could have got my children vaccinated while we were there.

I think wearing of masks on public transport/indoors makes a big difference. I’d imagine it also means people are more mindful of distancing and other precautions. Still can’t believe our government hasn’t left any of these restrictions in place.

Delta variant originated in India. I'm pretty sure a far lower proportion of France's population is of Indian heritage compared to the UK, so France would presumably have had fewer cases introduced from India at a time when lots of cases of the delta variant were being introduced into the UK. Of course delta spread to France, but if you're part way through a mass vaccination campaign, the timing of arrival of a new more infectious variant makes a big difference.

The photos are from the Tousanticovid app just now.

Vaccination rates are high, the figures include everyone over 12.
Lockdown also actually meant locked down- signed forms every time you went out, limited to 1km from home for exercise, curfew, no interdepartmental travel and yes, the rules were enforced with fines.
Everyone wears masks (I forgot mine in the supermarket today and had to beat a hasty and embarrassed retreat to get one from the caisse)
Most people distance as well, small shops limit the number of people (no more than 4 in our boulangerie so you have to queue outside). No handshakes or kisses on meeting.
Just about everything other than shops requires a pass sanitaire- even to sit outside on a cafe terrace.

I had to show our pass at a brocante last weekend.

No one likes masks (it's been mid 30's) and there has been some protests about the pass, but most people accept that it needs to be done and just get on with it.

But when was France actually last in lockdown? Wasn’t it Nov/Dec last year?

I think the links with the U.K. and India are far more important than mask wearing.