England and COVID-19: Has the lockdown led to fewer coronavirus cases?



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England has entered a third lockdown amid the coronavirus pandemic, and that does not appear to be creating a decline in COVID-19 cases, Reuters reports.

What’s going on?

Researchers warned Thursday that the highly transmissible variant of COVID-19 continues to make its way across the country, which has seen little decline in recent days despite a lockdown, according to Reuters.

  • In fact, the researchers said there was “no evidence of a decline” in the first 10 days of the newly added restrictions in England.

Key quote

  • “The number of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 (in hospital) is extremely high at the moment, and we cannot expect this to decrease unless we can achieve lower prevalence levels,” said Steven Riley, professor of infectious disease dynamics. , according to Reuters. “The fact that (the prevalence) does not decrease has potentially serious consequences.”

The context

In early January, England announced that it would enter a new national COVID-19 lockdown to deal with the rapidly spreading variant of COVID-19 originally discovered in the UK, as I wrote for the Deseret News.

  • Everyone in England has been urged to stay at home unless they are allowed to leave.
  • People could leave their homes for “basic medical needs, grocery shopping, exercise and work for those who cannot do it from home,” according to BBC News.

What next?

Paul Elliott, an expert in epidemiology and public health medicine and director of the REACT program, told Reuters that people must “double down on public health measures.”

  • “Wear face covers, keep your distance, and wash your hands,” Elliott said. “There will be continued pressure until we can reduce the prevalence.”

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