APOLOGIES GIANT POST. PLEASE READ IT OR NOT AS YOU CHOOSE.
BUT I THOUGHT SEEING THESE NUMBERS MUGHT INFORM THOSE KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT SUCH THINGS. AS THEY HAVE TO TELL US SOMETHING WE CAN WORK WITH.
I will leave it to the real data experts, Marvin, as I am in no way one - to agree or disagree but that makes sense as a possibility,
Though a little concerned that Bolton flattened after all the effort put in locally and fell. But has not really fallen below a base level whilst going from by miles the worst in GM to now easily the best,
Here are its weekly Pop Scores from 11 weeks ago when this started to peak in East Lancashire before anywhere else. I put in brackets with its Pop the number of cases in England only that same date for an indication of Bolton's relative contribution).
Bolton the week before (wk ending on 18 April) had started on 32 - a pretty typical score for the town in low days. (3222 cases in England that date).
Tameside and Trafford were the BEST in GM then on just 19. Several GM boroughs - including Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale were then higher than Bolton.
But BL edged up quickly to the end of that week on 50. And by the week starting 26 April (England cases DOWN to 1752) it was ahead of everywhere on 49 and 6 days later on 75 (England cases just 1377).
So as Bolton was going up England was falling quite fast.
However, Trafford had stared spiking too then - something that went unnoticed at the time and on 50 was the only place in GM looking to have a problem. Wigan was still way down on 23 and Stockport the best on just 20.
Over the next two weeks up to week ending 9 May (England cases still only 1418) Bolton had rapidly exploded upward starting on 81 and going to be just 14 days later on 305! So by then its relative percentage of England cases had suddenly skyrocketed, As these had barely changed whilst Bolton (and do not forget as it was actually worse than Bolton and still is - Blackburn/Burnley/Rossendale outside of GM was the huge part of it).
Unnoticed though was that most other boroughs were now inching up by then but not remotely near that level - Stockport went from 20 to 33. And Manchester (next nearest to Bolton) from 35 to 47.
So BL took all the attention as it had literally exploded out of all recognition in those two weeks.
A week later (wk ending 23 May) Bolton had reached its high point on 456. (England cases by then believe it or not were still just 1734- so Bolton was the centre of national news as it was dominating the cases - though with those less recognised neighbouring areas adding more actual cases which Zoe missed as that East Lancashire area was and still is a Zoe no App user blackspot that to this day never returns data).
Action was by then being taken locally in Bolton to suppress and it helped. But the wider threat not as yet realised.
Manchester in that same week was second highest but had only gone up from 47 to 59. Stockport had fallen all the way to 14. And on 46 Trafford was third most in GM behind Manchester and both miles behind Bolton,
Then it all changed as the measures taken locally / or the natural course of the wave took hold and Bolton started to steadily fall,
By week ending 30 May Bolton was down from 456 to 365 (England cases 2621 - as you can see England cases now rising as Bolton was dropping fast so it had come JUST too late spotting the problem before it had alreasy leaked out elsewhere acrss GM).
Those signs of spread were appearing. Bury became the next area of concern and rose from 58 to 121 and just kept on going up and up, Bury and Bolton are neighbour boroughs and share the BL postcode.
Bury were not alone in going up that week though, Manchester went 60 - 107, Oldham 31 to 68, Rochdale 47 to 93, Salford (bordering Bury) arguably the worst from 31 to 113, Stockport too from 17 to 76, Tameside 20 to 50, Wigan 42 to 80 - but Trafford the smallest jump from 46 to 68.
From here on Bolton inched down over the next two weeks - by week ending Jun 6 (England cases up to 4405 from the wider spread not now Bolton as that was falling) on 327 and week ending Jun 13 (England cases now suddenly going up inexorably by 50% on 6269) Bolton down to 295 and week ending Jun 20 (England cases now 7778) got as low as 249.
The rest of GM had gone up in those three weeks a lot. Bury overtook it in that third week and was now on 335 and Manchester, Wigan and Trafford had also all overtaken Bolton. Stockport was the only borough by then below 200 - on 194 - though not for much longer.
However, the next week these wide spread of cases (and possibly by now much more testing?) saw Bolton reverse and go upwards again from a low of 239 on 21 June (England cases 8766)
Sadly it has pretty slowly but steadily RISEN in the two and a half weeks since. On 21 June Stockport (194), Tameside (215), Oldham (223) and Rochdale (236) were all still just doing better than Bolton but by now it was ahead of all the rest in terms of low numbers after being far ahead.
In the 18 days since then Bolton has gone up again slowly. It was on 286 on 26 Jun (England cases having more than doubled in a week to 18, 702) but Bolton having only edged up when everywhere else was shooting up,
By then only Stockport was ahead of it on 257 and it was rising faster than Bolton so was not going to last. Manchester and Salford by now had a higher Pop Score than Bolton had ever had when it was spiralling up in May,
Bolton edged back up over 300 five days ago and is on 307 right now - its highest since 9 June.
But every single borough in GM in that month long period has now gone above it. Half of the county now higher than Bolton ever got.
In that period 9 Jun (England cases 6201) to 8 Jul (England cases more than quadrupled on 28, 421) here are how the GM Pop Scores have risen:
Bolton 324 to 307
Bury 229 to 369
Manchester 271 to 501
Oldham 136 to 586
Rochdale 183 to 516
Salford 287 to 501
Stockport 234 to 369
Tameside 132 to 443
Trafford 182 to 494
Wigan 199 to 526
As I think you can clearly see who is right now doing OK (Bolton best clearly still, Stockport up the least otherwise, with Bury not far behind).
Oldham and a few others not that far behind have quadrupled in 3 weeks.
No idea if this data shows anything we can learn from. Or what we can do with it. Will leave that to thise understading numbers better than I do. But this is a picture of the last 2 months in Greater Manchester.
It must tell us something.
