This is absolutely not the case. There are plenty of USA states and countries that told people to carry on as normal. Even our lockdowns weren't a genuine prevention of mixing they just a collection of daft rules strangling business.
Why have we not seen spikes in genuine illness in Schools since they went back?
Why have we not seen spikes in supermarket workers who are on the front line?
Hi Selwyn,
I didn't make a comment on lockdown policies in the USA, rather I think Rocherch's is question probes an underlying feature of the pandemic, that its not really a homogenous spread but in reality a series of very localised epidemics.
The data seems to fit this pattern, weather lockdowns have been applied or not. For this reason we all experience very different pandemics. Some of us, are fortunate to be largely untouched by it, while others have been devastated. this pattern of disease spread makes adopting a national policy harder. Although surveys find that most people support the governments approach in the UK.
The only real exception is the 'very draconian' steps made in some Asian countries where superfast track and trace literally stops infection in its tracks, I'm referring to China, Taiwan, S Korea and Singapore as examples of this very intrusive but effective lockdown. Australia and New Zealand has a similar if less draconian approach. However I don't consider these countries as good comparators for the UK/Europe/US as our economies are social structures are quite different. We have a lot more work based travel and service based economies. and we don't lock up noncompliant citizens.
My observation about Covid being a series of local, mini epidemics is based on local UK data, and ,I think it fits this pattern. Infections are very local, ie you either get just one or two isolated cases or you get a localised epidemic. If I take the schools round us, most have very little infection, the odd case that gets clamped down on, however a few schools got overrun and had to close temporarily. In March on schools opening, Bradford reported that there were 40 schools with just one infection and 27 had to close a whole bubble year due to in-class transmission.
What also seems to be emerging, is the vaccination programmes is having a meaningful impact. Infection rates are falling at the moment in-spite of us unlocking, that was not the case in January when schools first went back after Christmas.
I suspect this pattern is pretty representative of Europe and North America as we have similar social and economic models.
From what I've read about the US, most early cases were centred on cities, with little early infection in rural settings, however I've read about rural arears that seemed to follow this pattern of nasty local spikes of infection that suddenly caught the community 'unaware's so to speak.
My parents live is the small unitary county of Rutland. This had very low infection rates and was in the lower tier of lockdown for most of last year. It then went to the highest rate in the country during February. I asked my parents what had changed and in fact very little had. There were two outbreaks, one in the local prison and one in the village of Ketton that stemmed from a large party. These two very local incidents were responsible for 98% of the outbreak, the rest of the county, its two small towns were pretty much unaffected.
Not seen spikes on supermarkets.
Not sure what the explanation is, I suspect its the way the virous transmits through airborne droplets (aerosols). Transmission seems to be highest in family homes and in hospitality venues, such as, pubs, in taxis, and also cold-chain-packing such as meat processors.
From what I can tell, the large open spaces in supermarkets, limited crowds due to the queuing/traffic light systems and the shields for staff seem to be effective. One thing that seems to be emerging, is this virus does not easily transmit from surfaces such as packaging. This is different to colds and flue where particles on surfaces are believed to be part of the transmission of those viruses.
Not sure if I've really answered your question. The real point is we don't observe the pandemic as a homogeneous transmission - say as an economic recession or a drought or flood. This is a set of very local issues affecting isolated families. The case of my sons best friend's dad dying. The whole family got covid, some really badly others less so. That has been our experience all along, most people I know have not had it, but a few families have had it and there overall experience was bad, the young, ok on the whole, but their parents not so, and a few have long covid - I think the figure of 1 in 20 feels right from my personal experience of family and friends.
Best wishes Tom
