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?

The only one jab is because antibodies created by having covid plus 1 jab give you more protecrion than 2 jabs. So giving a wnd jab to those who have had covid doesnt give much benefit.

The take up of vaccinations hugely increased when they introduced the covid passport to go into shopping centres and bars/restaurants (even sitting outside).

In April 2021 they changed the school holiday dates and introduced travel restrictions so all DC were off school at same time (usually its staggered depending on region), primary had the usual 2 weeks, secondary had 3 or 4 weeks off and then went back partly online. And no one could go on holiday during April and almost all holiday clubs were shut.

Today’s stats from Worldometer:

France: new cases - 9966
deaths - 80

U.K.: new cases - 37,663
deaths - 147

So the U.K. has almost four times as many cases but not even twice as many deaths.

They’ve vaccinated more than us now. They are vaccinating 12plus. They still have masks and mitigations in schools. Isolation still exists for contacts in schools. Masks still in many public places. They’re just being more sensible despite having more vaccinated.

The positivity rate shows it’s not testing.

The U.K. has some very high positivity rates. We are not testing too much we just have a lot who need tests and even then not enough are taking tests so we don’t have an under control positivity rate.

@BunsyGirl

Today’s stats from Worldometer:

France: new cases - 9966
deaths - 80

U.K.: new cases - 37,663
deaths - 147

So the U.K. has almost four times as many cases but not even twice as many deaths.

You need to look at this in context because deaths are always delayed data from cases 2-3 weeks earlier.

Their cases are going down. Three weeks ago there were around 23,000 cases. The 80 deaths is linked to that.

Three weeks ago we had 27,000 cases. A similar number.

But now we have 147 deaths.

That’s not good.

Uk at 64% fully vaccinated compared to france 62%

Our 64% could in theory inc a greater % if the actual at risk groups given france rates inc low risk kids

@TheYearOfSmallThings I live in France and I don’t think you are at all correct saying ‘life is back to normal in both cases’… here we are still mask wearing everywhere, we gave covid passports (restricted entry to restaurants, shopping centres, theatres, gyms, also travel between regions by train is controlled only double jabbed allowed etc) and there have been more people vaccinated here. Since this week France are giving booster shots to over 65s; I don’t know if that’s happening in the UK. When I speak to my family in the UK I don’t get the impression the two countries are living by the same rules at all! Masks are compulsory here and so are vaccine passports unless you want to stay at home and do nothing.

xo

@DobbyTheHouseElk yes the free testing here stopped start of September- this was because to get a covid passport you needed either double jab or a negative test. So they stopped free testing to discourage that being a free route to getting a covid passport. This is why so many people have got the vaccine as whilst it’s not obligatory, they’ve done everything possible to make it the easiest option!

Interestingly the country in Europe currently with the lowest covid rates is Sweden one that has done very little re masks and lockdowns.

It’s Interesting that people want to “be france” and not “be Sweden” since that would be better at the moment!

but then people don’t want to “be france” they want to wear one use masks in all places (sod the planet!) so picked a country that does that abs say “look this is great” but I think given the situation in Sweden it’s a bit more complicated!

We also test more people, even categorising deaths varies from countries to country, it's hard to compare accurately

That might explain the lower numbers of deaths watapalava, although wildwoodz is correct about the deaths being related to cases several weeks ago.

It doesn't really explain the difference in the number of cases now or cases falling faster in France than the UK. More testing doesn't explain it because the positivity rates for testing in the UK and France are broadly similar. If anything the UKs is slightly higher but both are under 5% so there are unlikely to be huge numbers of missing positives in either country.

Something behavioural seems the most likely explanation. Whether that's through government policies/requirements or social attitudes it's difficult to say.
Vaccination of 12-15 year olds, better adherence to mask wearing or different masks all seem reasonable explanations. Particularly if used in combination. Different vaccines/more recent vaccines might also play a part.

I think that reintroducing masking, particularly in places like public transport and keeping isolation of household contacts here might be a good idea. It feels like we're still stuck in that mindset of not acting until we have to and then slamming the brakes on.

The demographics and population density in Scandanavian countries are rather different to here though?

"Experts pointed to unique aspects of Swedish life as reasons for this, including the high volume of people that live alone and population's high trust in the government, which suggests people are likely to follow recommendations even without their becoming formal rules."

Also, they went with social distancing rather than mask wearing, apparently.

I'd be interested in more informed opinions on this!

@Dghgcotcitc Are you sure Sweden has the lowest rates in Europe? There are several European countries on the UK's "green list", but Sweden isn't one of them.

Denmark, Norway and Finland are on the UK's green list, but Sweden isn't!

The answer is mitigations. We have thrown caution to the wind. They haven't. Simple.

I don’t for a minute belive that masks play any role at all

Worth noting that death criteria vary hugely

We count deaths within 28 days where covid is on cert

It could be covid+ heart attack!

Other countries are much more specific

I honestly think it’s a no go to compare countries at all

Majority of Europe doesn’t even genome test for variants

France has vaccine passports plus people still wearing masks. Where I live I’m one of the few people still wearing a mask indoors.

Sweden has rates of about 64 per 100,000 france over a 100,000 they are not quite the lowest in Europe to be fair since the faero islands are Lowe but certainly lower than many in the green list yes, Finland 70, Denmark 72 so close but basically Sweden is doing very well at the moment abs a lot better than france (and yet only has masks on public transport and def not in primary schools!)

Data is here www.statista.com/statistics/1139048/coronavirus-case-rates-in-the-past-7-days-in-europe-by-country/

Sorry that should read france is about 130 per 100,000 less than us but Sweden quite a bit better!

The UK’s positivity rate is not below 5%.

England 8.3%
Scotland 12.6%
Wales 19%
NI 6.4%

@Watapalava

I don’t for a minute belive that masks play any role at all

Worth noting that death criteria vary hugely

We count deaths within 28 days where covid is on cert

It could be covid+ heart attack!

Other countries are much more specific

I honestly think it’s a no go to compare countries at all

Majority of Europe doesn’t even genome test for variants

I can’t believe people are still trotting out this deaths lie. Other countries count on very and after 28 days. They count more.

Regarding death comparisons, looking at a country's excess deaths compared to the equivalent period pre-Covid will often be a good way of comparing (provided of course that there was no other factor that came on the scene at the same time as Covid and significantly impacted death rate). NB Don't expect to see the UK government encouraging us to compare excess death rates with our European neighbours...

So is it only by looking back in retrospect at each nation's excess deaths that we will understand how successful/unsuccessful they have been in their management of this virus?

France do not inc care homes and deaths at home

1/3 of uk seats were in care homes!

Deaths not seats

France currently has 11,000 patients in hospital compared to 9000 here and double our ICU

Figures are not as they seem