Very good news and as you mentioned, new cases also dramatically falling

No need for further measures and by the end of the month we can look to ease existing ones as Ferguson says

We are slowly defeating this and we can get back to normal very soon

I have to say I am enjoying your satirical posts. Keep them coming. 

Yes, fair play to Handjob, he has delivered and the rate of infection is clearly dropping across Europe. Nothing satirical about that, its a fact that the virus has peaked and we are slowly coming out of the other side

I’m not, I find them offensive to be frank.

As the number of new infections increases, it should be fairly bleeding obvious that the percentage mortality rate will decline. That it is only doing so slowly is extremely worrying.

That’s what I do, although I haven’t hidden Beasts, I just ignore the posts I don’t like!

This was never a battle that was going to be won quickly. By Easter, I think that we will see small but real improvement but it won't be until the end of the month until we see real progress. The lockdown measures will make a big difference, given time.

5 year old reported to have died. Of the 636 extra deaths reported today in England, 33% (212) were from the Midlands.

The basic JFF model (no account for periodicity and testing increasing) suggests tommorow will be the peak. Today's rise of 3735 cases is consistent with the model.

Accounting for testing differences in the model:

The slight dip is related to the slightly fewer people tested today compared to yesterday.

But regardless, if this JFF model is correct, we are very close to the peak now.

Any relaxation of lockdown measures will need to be gradual. Thereafter, much more testing and tracing of infections will be needed. We can only hope that that will be enough. I don't think that we can sustain 12 months of lockdown. 

I should enphasise, I don't know how seriously to take my own model predictions. I'm quite skeptical we are so close to the peak. But I haven't changed the basic parameters in the model much for weeks now. And the total confirmed cases has held steady at about 80k.

So the wild fluctuations between 30k and 100k+ have stopped as more data has come through. It may well be you can't model this epidemic as exponential growth with a roughly linear decreasing infection rate. I suppose we will know shortly.

We don’t know how long it will take for today’s test results to come back, when the test results published today were taken, or who they’ve included in tests.  Whether it’s just patients being newly admitted, those who’ve been in hospital for a while, or whether they’re including frontline NHS staff.  Death figures are being reported daily but include those who died several days ago, so we can’t tell whether they’re going up or down.

I think the data will only really be meaningful longer term and especially when this is all over!  

637 new deaths in England

• Midlands - 212


• London - 127


• North West - 97


• North East and Yorkshire - 73


• East of England - 70


• South East - 41


• South West - 17

The patients were between 5 and 104-years-old

40 patients aged between 48 and 93 had no known underlying conditions

And well short of the 1000 a day predictions from some of the doomsayers

I assume the hot sunny weather will also help neutralise the virus in the outdoors and speed up the flattening

Clearly a big problem in the BAME community in Birmingham and West midlands. For cultural reasons, social distancing is a struggle.

Even though Mosques are closed, how many are still praying together unofficially in private residencies?

As Maunder pointed out in Israel, similar issue amongst some orthodox Jewish communities

The Midlands is becoming a big concern now with the rise in deaths 

London has seen a 21% drop in new deaths up to 5pm yesterday whilst the Midlands have seen a 41% increase

• Midlands - 212


• London - 127


• North West - 97


• North East and Yorkshire - 73


• East of England - 70


• South East - 41


• South West - 17

The relaxation will be an interesting one, where do you start ? 

All industries back to work ?...……..I doubt that as many people work side by side 

Allowing small gatherings ? ….…….Risky as you'd have clusters of groups everywhere , you might as well open the gates 

Families to visit each other.....…...The favourite to start with I'd say

Schools to reopen ……….unlikely just for the short period of time to the Summer holiday.

Sport to open its doors ………....Highley unlikely id say  

Heat as a stopper is  unfounded , that cant be proved and when initially discussed the temp being discussed was high 20's 

Look at Spain

Totally fair enough. I’m a fan of dark humour but I may change my mind if I was affected severely on a personal level. 

It has hit our street for the first time in the last 48 hours. Once it's at your door the fear factor increases markedly. As Janice Turner said in The Times today the outcome is a lottery. Young healthy people have better odds but it's still not a ticket you would buy. 

Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham reported 101 deaths yesterday, taking their total to 203. As we have seen before, that may not be a true daily figure but just represent a lot of cases being officially reported on the same day.