The UK figures are skewed by Scotland. England has a higher population density than the Netherlands for example.

How to do it properly.

We'll be stuck with 20-odd thousand tests a day and little Matty Handjob bullsh*tting his way through pressers.

As mentioned several times, built-up (or lived) density is more relevant here. England is still very high in the list. If you use Max 1Km population, then several other Europeans countries have areas with much higher density populations than England.

https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/02/theres-a-better-way-to-measure-population-density/552815/

Having tested 12% of their population we should be able to learn a lot from the data Iceland is able to gather.

Arent we up to 35k now?

Bizarre. Although the TV deal in France is a fraction of that paid for the Premier League (or that of La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga) so less financial ramifications. Still, though, a televised behind-closed-doors conclusion with all players regularly tested seems a more than reasonable and safe alternative.

A more visual look at this.

I am sort of with you with the police bit Beast. Blame, there we go should be put on Theresa May cutting the 20,000 police, though I assume cuts were made everywhere. It seemed to be overnight we were abandoned and gangs and drugs started taking a stronghold. It's going to take some time now to 'unwind' them from their existence among us.

Think the police are just running too much below capacity and have a heirachy on what crime they should attend at what speed, same for ambulances.

As an aside, I am sure my front door handle was 'checked' last night to see if it had been locked as we heard it go about 11.30pm. We were burgled on New Years Day morning at 5am a few years back where I hadn't locked the front door. We have one of those 5 point locking systems where you have to turn the handle up to engage all 5 points, then lock the door. I heard the burglars and chased them out into their range rover. They caught them after they done about 70 raids and one was called shotgun Pete. Lucky I did not catch up with him in his car. 

The moral is, with crime perhaps increasing do lock your front doors properly. Just pulling it shut is like leaving it open.

With the activity outside, there are loads of vans with deliveries and builders vans going about. The sceptical part of me reckons the drugs gangs are doing their business using vans as their BMW's stick out like a sore thumb. I also reckon there are a number of people claiming their 80%, but also have found other jobs possibly cash in hand while this goes on. So enjoying the extra money overall. There's a part of me that says if work is still going on outside, then stuff is being bought from shops to supply, there's a sort of level that will help the wheels of the economy.

Agreed, they found 0.8% to be infected early in the month and 0.6% more recently. Icelanders are also typically frank and direct:

"I think it is inexcusable that the UK was not more vigilant, notably in using PCR testing.

With America, it has amazing resources and actually taught us how to do the screens we are doing now. They invented the technology but unfortunately were slow to apply it to their own people.

I think this epidemic would have looked totally different if countries like the US, UK and other European countries had been more vigilant."

Sorry, my mistake. We're now at 5% of what France will be testing, instead of 4%.

Most were cut under Cameron/Osborne.

Iceland has also employed the international best practice:

"We have taken a middle of the road approach, rather than lockdown. Elementary schools, childcare and stores are still open, for example, but we have banned gatherings of more than 20 people and closed theatres and concert halls.

We have done it in a relaxed way but with three exceptions: we have screened more than anyone else to find the cases looming in society that have not been caught by the healthcare system; we have aggressively tracked people they have come into contact with; and we have equally aggressively put them in quarantine.

This has worked."

Isn't that easier to do though when you have a very small population, relative to other European countries, to deal with? 

I don't know about the situation in France but in the UK I believe one of the concerns is people gathering to watch televised games.

Of course. However, a larger population and a larger economy should make it easier to employ more contract tracers too, so there should be some proportionality. 

Sorry, I meant that the other way round. I didn't think it favoured healthy people !!

So much easier to do in a country with a small population and low population density. I saw an interview with their prime minister the other day and she was saying how their small size had helped them get on top of it quickly.

Let's see if the French actually do manage to achieve what they state they want to achieve. 700K per day is a crazy number - do they actually have that capacity?

100K per day is the UK ambition. To achieve it, you need the machines and the reagent and the supplies of swabs - every tube with the two swabs in it (one for throat and one for nose) has to be uniquely identified so it can be matched with the person tested.

I see they have set a target of no more than 3000 new cases daily by 11/05 or else restrictions won’t be lifted.

In Justin's world, the 700K per day claim is a "lie"

The true figure is 700K per week:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-france-testing-idUSKCN22A264

Matches the 100K per day we are aiming for.

What stops us from deploying 20,000 contact tracers at local level like Germany is doing? We are now almost 2 months in this crisis and we are still like rabbits caught in the headlights or headless chickens.

That is planned for when the lockdown is eased. There was little point doing it during the surge in cases and hospitalisations with lockdown in place.

The key to ending the lockdown is to get new cases way down, to start mass testing and to do the contact tracing/quarantine. There will always be a persistent level of new infections, but hopefully at a low enough level to enable most of society to start functioning once more. The problem will remain the hospitality industry - bars, restaurants, hotels, holidays - foreign holidays have to be off the menu this summer, autumn and winter at least.

Another interesting bit from Iceland's mass screening (they are not just testing for the virus, they also sequence it):

"Men are much more likely to become infected than women. If women get infected, they do not get as sick as men.

Children under 10 are less likely to get infected than adults and if they get infected, they are less likely to get seriously ill. What is interesting is that even if children do get infected, they are less likely to transmit the disease to others than adults. We have not found a single instance of a child infecting parents.

There is an amazing diversity in the way in which we react to the virus."

Yes, I agree we all this and I think if we do it properly, then we stand a good chance of avoiding a second surge and keeping the epidemic at relatively low levels until the potential vaccine. There are just too many countries, where this approach is working.