The chain of success for any restrictions from tier whatever to circuit breakers to lockdowns are all predicated by gaps between when they start to show impact.
Case reductions will always come first. This has been most obvious in N Ireland where numbers have not just plateaued but are clearly going down from day after day of falls in the 7 day number. Scotland cases have done the same but starting from a higher point - near 2000 not 1000 a day and so will take longer. Wales are having more difficulty even getting to that point. But they have had pro rata the worst of the pandemic all along as I have mentioned often in past months. I speculated it might be a high retirement population (North Wales coast) and huge community of ex mine workers with co morbid conditions that Covid targets caused by decades of such work.
But I do hope people are looking into questions like this as it is how we should target future measures aimed at the social dynamics of differing areas.
The reason early intervention not waiting weeks matters is that it bursts the bubble of escalating cases at a low point from which after a few weeks you cam get to a modest number. Given how Covid transmits even a week or so delay can mean three weeks longer to get back to where you would have been if acting a week earlier.
This is why without a unified UK strategy implemented rapidly we have a hodge podge of different approaches which will not all work the same. I expect England to be well behind the control success of other nations. Though the NW might actually benefit from this as waves do run out of steam and we have a head start on wave two over the south - the reverse of how it was in wave one.
Inevitably deaths are the last to be gotten under control and I do worry how high we will go here until the corner is turmed as 500 is above the limit I hoped we would ever reach but as there is only likely to be the first hint of an impact a month from now when the lockdown ends who knows if we will be above or around where we are now. It seems too much to hope we will be below it as even if the NW reaps benefits of its months of restrictions and the problems travel southwards as they may well there will nationally still be a lot of deaths at the point when Boris has promised we will emerge into tiers for every area of the UK in 4 weeks.
Care homes certainly still appear to be a big problem and I am concerned 8 months in we seem to have no real developed strategy and outbreaks are still happening in the most vulnerable community in the UK. I trust they will be the first non front line staff to be vaccinated. It could save many lives this Winter.
