England's Covid-19 infections down 30% during national lockdown – survey

From my experience a lot of people are ignoring it. I've been to-the-letter in terms of compliance. Nearly everyone I know hasn't been - they often say "well, yeah, but I know I haven't got it so it's OK", or similar. Some are just flat out deniers. It's not everyone - obviously my experience is only anecdotal - but I think that would explain a lot of it, plus it not really being a lockdown in the true sense.

I guess in the case of Portugal family reunions against the government's advice could be a factor. It seems hard to get the relevant data, though.

Why are you mixing units? If infections are down 4X so 100 -> 25 (-75%), why not just quote in per cent terms as the headline is?

Our first lockdown was a real lockdown where the streets were a ghost town. Right now you wouldn't even know it was a lockdown, you'd think it was just mild precautions.

The UK is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, 14th according wiki.

Ireland is one of the least densely populated countries in the world 112th.

I see these intercountry comparisions all the time and it makes no sense, every situation is vastly different. I'm in Australia, and know I have it good, but Australia had all the factors going for it, it's easily isolated from inter country travel and it has very sparsely populated cities. It's economy is also propped up with an abundance of natural resources unlike services based economies like the UK.

The word "lockdown" is being used for everything from "welding anyone with a fever into their apartment" to "a mild suggestion that people work from home if practical." Any reasonably restrictive lockdown which minimizes time spent outside one's own home and limits travel between regions is, if enforced, going to rapidly reduce R-values, and shortly thereafter, active cases.

Unfortunately, many jurisdictions aren't willing to accept the financial losses from such a lockdown, and so institute something between a token effort and a sham, invariably following it some weeks later with a declaration that "lockdowns don't work."

This lockdown wasn't particularly severe, in terms of rules and enforcement, and anecdotally people haven't been taking it as seriously as the first one.

For example, back in the April lockdown, central London was virtually deserted. Almost all businesses completely closed, and famously crowded locations like Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square were almost completely devoid of people. A very eerie and strange sight!

But this time, the streets have remained pretty busy. Many businesses and offices are open and in the evenings there's a relaxed, festive atmosphere on the streets. Although pubs are restaurants are "closed" inside, they are allowed to sell takeaway food and alcohol. So there are many pubs open in Soho (for example) selling takeaway drinks and people are hanging around outside drinking and eating and having a great time. Street party!

Socially, there also seems to be less fear of the virus than there used to be. During the first lockdown, a lot of people were quite fearful of going out. Now, not so much.

In this "lockdown," schools remained open, and people were encouraged to go to work if they can't work from home. Restaurants and pubs were closed for dine in service, but they are allowed to do takeaway. "Non-essential" shops were closed, but anecdotally, lot's of non-essential shopping continued at places like supermarkets and hardware stores. Prior to the lockdown, there were already tiered regional restrictions in place, so rather than going from wide open to locked down like in March, we went from somewhat restricted to somewhat more restricted and now we are going back to somewhat restricted.

Lots of people, festive atmosphere, most shops appeared to be open, coffee shops were open, cafes were open.

The difference was coffee shops and cafes were only doing takeaways and outdoor service. But it's hard to see that from a distance, especially the ones lit and processing orders at the usual counters inside. As a result, people were eating and drinking outside, and it made the seated areas on the streets seem busier than normal.

The pubs were closed, that was the most noticeable thing.

Clothes shops were closed, except M&S which is 80% clothes was open, presumably on the excuse that at the back they sell food. I noticed quite a few other large shops open that seemed "non-essential" to me, but who am I to judge what's essential.

My landlord's property agent was open, which surprised me when they asked me to take a letter there. I asked about that, and they said they are alternating who is in the office each day so there's only half the staff. I'm not convinced they are essential, especially when they seemed to be able to work from home just fine earlier in the year, but it's up to them.

Walking down the street while keeping 2m from other people was difficult even on pedestrianised streets (no vehicles) because of so many people. I didn't see much mask wearing outside - less than in the summer.

It made me quite uncomfortable to be honest; I haven't been out since.

I know that it's more severe in other regions of the UK. But where I live, Oxford, it seemed quite lax. Our case rate here is below average for the country despite a very large number of students.

They must be doing something right, as the figures have started dropping clearly on the charts over the last week. I hope it's because they're being smarter about what to restrict now. Maybe they're actually getting better at this.

This lockdown was business as usual, with social distancing. The only real limits are how many people can meet up.

It's a farce of a lockdown, so it's only been partially effective.

Our inability to see past the end of next week isn't doing us any favours. God knows how we are going to deal with climate change.

(1000 per 100k is not as significant as it sounds, as 1 per 100k is a similar level of threat if the exponential is positive. That's just a time lag difference of a few weeks.)

For responsibility, you could think of it another way. Saying the "virus is in retreat" implies "lockdown is working - yay!" and might encourage the people currently voting on near-future regional restrictions to carry on because it appears to be working.

Right now, some MPs are threatening to block the government from implementing targeted, regional restrictions for the next couple of months, so the government is having to negotiate for lesser restrictions. Perhaps the Reuters headline will encourage them to keep up the restrictions for a while longer.

This is just straight up wrong. Many countries like China, Singapore and Australia have gotten sizable outbreaks (tens of thousands of people) under control and effectively eliminated the virus in their territories.

I do agree that half-assed lockdowns are the worst of both worlds: you endure the economic damage of shutdown without putting much of a dent in the case count. That said, with mass vaccination on the horizon, even pushing back the peak by a few months is about to start having real benefits.

(1) https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS...

It's hard to pick these things apart.

This comment is utterly infuriating. Who is we? Is it epidemiologists? Because I think they would disagree with you. Is it South Korea or New Zealand? They would disagree too.

COVID 19's spread and contagion isn't magic. It's basic germ theory, which we've known for over 100 years. The fact that this defeatist, anti-science sentiment can sit as the most upvoted comment on a site called Hacker News is... a sign of the times.

You can't assert you passed the peak until a long time after you pass it. Given the primary source, the UK peak was around 2 Nov/3 Nov https://covid.joinzoe.com/data#levels-over-time Yes, the previous measures might be sufficient and more important than a lockdown

> (2) Infections in most of Western Europe are decreasing at the same time regardless of measures taken or when they were taken.

Except for Sweden, where it kept climbing and climbing, funny.

> we will understand that the virus will follow its own curve regardless of what we try to do

Physical isolation of infected people has been proven to work since the middle ages and the black plague but it seems that the new fashion is to invent some idiotic BS and repeat it as truth such as "the Earth is flat" or "people can be contaminated through closed walls". But if you think it doesn't matter might I suggest you go volunteer in a COVID ward. No masks needed.

> Six of 12 men wintering at an isolated Antarctic base sequentially developed symptoms and signs of a common cold after 17 weeks of complete isolation

If each person is infectious for 5 days, and it takes between 2 to 14 days for incubation, it is not hard to imagine how it goes on for 17 weeks. It might not even have been Covid (or a virus)