This isn't solely a southern problem now, it's rapidly becoming a national issue. Across England, 7 day case rates have risen in 283 of the 315 local authorities in England. Just 32 have seen a drop. And remember, that's only on numbers up to the 24th December at present. We're starting to see bigger jumps across the country in the last few days which aren't reflected yet.
There's a very difficult balancing act at present, as we're in a bit of an unknown due to a number of factors which are either reducing the number of infections or potentially masking them:
- Schools appear to be a main factor in the speed of the spread in London and the South East. Elsewhere, we appear to have been incredibly fortunate that school holidays kicked in just before or just as the new strain hit those areas. That's so far resulted in slowing the exponential rise in the South East and London.
- For those with mild symptoms, there will be a (hopefully small) chunk of people who will be very reluctant to get a test over the Christmas period. Incredibly irresponsible, but it wouldn't surprise me if some avoided getting tested and went about their business. Or, they avoided getting tested and isolate to prevent other members of the family or friends having to be told to self isolate through the app/test and trace. That could mask the true number of infections at present.
- Christmas bubbles are yet to be factored into the current infections, and are unlikely to be in any sort of large number until Thursday or Friday. That's extremely worrying considering we are already seeing increases across the board.
It should be said, I absolutely despise lockdowns and higher tiers. Being in tier 3 now following lockdown, I struggle horrendously with them. So do we accept a lockdown or harsher local tiers that we seem to really need now, or do we get to an even more uncontrollable level within the next few weeks and end up with an even longer lockdown as we did in March and as we did in November?
For me, I'm of the view now that we are so close to having a proper rollout of the vaccine that I'd sooner the harsher brakes be put on now rather than later on. Although the vaccines are in sight now, it's clear there's going to be nowhere near enough quantity wise to have any effect just yet. Reducing infections now is key to allow us to have any sort of recovery in 2021. Likewise, with this new strain the government also need to give proper consideration to schools. Yes it's essential they're in, and I fully agreed with that previously. But the game has changed now that this new strain has been seen to be spreading so quickly particularly within secondary schools. They need to make a decision quickly so that teachers and parents can make adequate preparations to deal with the split of online learning, as well as have a clear plan to get them back in a phased way with adequate testing (and the guidance and resources to administer that) as soon as possible.
Yet again though I'm also really concerned at the lack of communication from the government at present. Some sections of the press have been allowed to run riot with no sort of official response. There's been no information for schools whilst rumours persist in the press/social media. There's no official explanation on why Nightingale hospitals being shut (because there's no adequate resource available to staff them). As a result we've now got social media running wild talking about 'scamdemics' and pointing out ridiculous misleading comparisons on bed occupancy levels without any sort of understanding the difference additional protocols are in place at the hospitals cause.
I fear that we're at the tipping point of a large chunk of the public not giving a damn now. The good faith has been wasted away with mismanagement, poor decision making, communication and timing. Strap in, January ain't gonna be fun!
. As much as on the face of it that article sounds like Michael Gove is saying nothing will change, there's one key quote:
