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?

very interesting points MRex.

I think it is also worth noting that we won’t know the full negative impacts of lockdowns, restrictions and mitigations for many years either. Yes we can argue about what we think are the least worst in the short and longer term, and yes it’s not an either/or in terms of decision making, but none of us knows for sure.

Because they can; most countries simply cannot take such an authoritarian approach.

Most countries aren't choosing a genocidal - let the bodies pile up, kill and disable many - approach either.

They're going for a sensible balance. Less restrictions but rather mitigations.

@Watapalava

This is 100% purely down to testing

Worldometer shows we test double the numbers France does (per million population) and triple Spain

It’s ridiculous how much we test

And yet we, and other countries, rely on our testing data to understand what is happening with the virus.

We test so much more as an ongoing part of the AZ vaccine development programme.

I don't know why that's ridiculous.

@Delatron - we think outside transmission low. Doesn't fully explain the Euros transmission nor the festivals transmission.

I know kids at festivals catching the t but they were sharing tents.
Football events often begin or end in pubs.

@blameitonthecaffeine - I may be looking in the wrong place but I don't think our average weekly deaths are on a par at all. We're out of step with all of Europe in a bad way.

I wonder if there is a comparison in spikes in cases related to mass events between countries that allow only supervised tests and those that allow unsupervised self tests.

luckylavender you have to look at it per capita.
So, for example, yesterday:
We had 147 deaths.

Spain had 72 deaths. Their population is nearly half ours so it's more like the equivalent of 130-140 deaths.

Romania had 41 deaths. Their population is less than a third of ours so the equivalent of around 130 deaths.

Serbia had 25 deaths. Their population is about 8 times smaller so equivalent of 200 deaths.

Greece had 42 deaths. Their population is about 6 times smaller so equivalent of about 250 deaths.

There are other countries doing badly and other countries doing well. We're not doing well but I don't feel it's as bad as it should be considering we have no restrictions and sky high cases. Vaccines are holding up pretty well. Worldwide we're only 24th for deaths per capita now. Down from I think as bad as 5th or 6th at one point.

It's weird because that makes it sound like a competition which I didn't intend. I just think we're so quick to say 'UK bad, other countries good' when that isn't actually true.

the worry with deaths is that they lag behind cases. Spain, Romania, Greece etc have those deaths now but they peaked the new case wave a while ago and so the death numbers will come down (looking at worldometers spain had more than 100 deaths a few weeks ago so already are. Also 46:66 million (Spain:UK) would suggest 100 deaths scaled up. We are doing badly but who could expect otherwise from "pile up the bodies" Johnson.

Oh sorry, I thought Spain had a population of 37 million for some reason.

I know the deaths lag but I feel that most places haven't been diving up and so quickly for those 2-3 weeks to really be playing a huge part at this point? Deaths have been fairly steady in most places for a while - I think. Romania and Serbia are seeing a peak right now, not a decline. Greece, not sure. Looks to be starting to come down from a long, flattish peak (if you can have a flat peak?) I never really get Spain, France and Italy. Their cases seem to come down from peaks so quickly. But Spain has been low for a long time I think. So don't know how many of current deaths can still be from the peak.

Admittedly, all I do is obsessively study the WHO page. I know nothing else about anything!

I had to google how to work out ratios

Spain had like a massive spike and quick fall, they had a reopening and end of outdoor mask mandate at the same time, maybe June ish? I think the spike happened just after that.

Another interesting thing about France is that their former health minister is being taken to court for her handling of the pandemic in the early days of it. Apparently there is a special process for "minister accountability." Sharp contrast to Boris' defence of the rule breaking from Cummings, Hancock etc. (although there's a strong argument against taking ministers to court it is an interesting development there)

@blameitonthecaffeine - better to use The Economist excess deaths page. Other sources don't include even known death figures in some cases (e.g. Russia).

@blameitonthecaffeine - I understand the per capita point completely and I look at the numbers most days. I usually look at France and Germany most closely followed by Italy and Belgium as they have both had very bad spells. We're not faring at all well in comparison.

I think festival transmission is sharing tents and the loos.

And maybe lots of teenagers snogging.

I still don’t think Covid is spread outdoors in a field...

We are doing more than double the amount of tests so picking up asymptomatic cases, and our population density is more than double. Our case numbers cannot be compared to France or most other countries to be fair. The only other country remotely close to us with testing is Czechia.

luckylavender No, agreed, we are worse off than those 4 countries right now. Have always been worse than Germany. The other three have had periods of being worse than us.

I think we're kind of upper middle overall in the severity list? Better than many, worse than the majority.

@mrshoho

I hear you, but China also started with a vaccine last summer, months before any Western country.

Yes I believe they've dished out a mind boggling 2billion doses. And yet they are still expending so much time and energy in shutting down each and every case. They are still locking down (literally) whole areas. When will it end? What are they waiting for?

Yes I would be interested to know why it is still so severe there. Do they know something more about this virus?

@blameitonthecaffeine - if you look at the data in terms of deaths per 1m of population then we're 24th overall. But lots of the countries who have more are much much smaller than us.

[quote luckylavender]@blameitonthecaffeine - if you look at the data in terms of deaths per 1m of population then we're 24th overall. But lots of the countries who have more are much much smaller than us. [/quote]
There is no such thing as "24th". It isn't a race, and deaths are counted differently (or not at all) in different countries. If you want an objective measure then you should look at The Economist excess deaths, they explain very well the tracking issues and which countries do or do not track excess deaths.
www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker

Isn't that the point of a per capita calculation, luckylavender? Yes, they're much smaller than us. But that just means their seemingly small number of deaths are a really bad thing for them as a percentage of their population. I don't understand why being a small country means it's not so bad?

It's like saying India has done really badly because they have so many deaths. Whereas their figures are a tiny proportion of their population and, IF they are accurate (unlikely, I know) would make them a relatively lightly affected country.

One thing presumably working in France's favour at the moment is that because they were slower with their roll-out their most vulnerable population are more freshly protected, whereas all our octogenarians will have received their second vaccine a good six months ago.

One other thing that we can learn from France is that vaccine passporting really does work to incentivise a hesitant population to get vaccinated.

The UK media seems to be going with a clearly bogus click-bait narrative of "my teenaged niece says that she was going to get vaccinated but if they make it compulsory in order to go to festivals then she definitely won't, so there, so actually introducing vaccine passports will make fewer people get vaccinated!"

If you don't think that vaccine passports are a morally justified means of incentivising vaccination then that's a valid position, but don't try and cover yourself by also arguing that it won't work.

I was just looking at Russia and their excess death figures. It is an incredibly high number and expected to continue rising. It could soon be close to .5% of their total population! It may sound macabre but how are they even processing the shear numbers? Prior to covid their mortality rates had been improving although still below most of Europe.

I'm sort of surprised that Russia is even letting the data be reported if it's so damning.

I was thinking that too. I do wonder wth is going on. Russia was v quick to vaccinate certain groups ie. essential workers yet today the % of vaccinated in total population is low. I sometimes wonder is there some sort of mad population control going on?