The news article was posted earlier in this thread. I'm really surprised that nobody else has reacted to it.

I do understand what governments get up to and even why they do it. The fact is that like nuclear power, if you mess with it enough, there will be an accident. The consequences of that accident are unpredictable but have potential to inflict great harm.

No predicting when the bus will turn up and then two or three might come at once. Good old Poisson!

Did they? I didn't know that. Have you got a reference for when and who said that? It was surely very early because it would have been in Trump's league to say that once it started spreading in Wuhan. How else could it transmit.

As a general rule UV might destroy viruses but it's not that simple because there are things called buildings.

I did think the NW figures were bad today and I see the region has taken over London as the area with most hospital cases. 

It’s difficult to gauge how bad things are day by day though, especially at the weekend, better to look at things week on week. 

It stands to reason that the huge conurbations of Manchester and Liverpool will be badly hit, maybe a bit later than London. 

Edit - I don’t agree the R0 is above 1 in the NW - it will be in line with the rest of the country.  

Why? I read that they did. Of course in this world it is hard to discern what is true.

Funny how Russian doctors have started falling out of windows, isn't it?

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-dictor-siberian-hospita-falls-fifth-floor-coronavirus/30579025.html

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/04/28/second-russian-doctor-falls-from-hospital-window-amid-coronavirus-a70124

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8282033/Third-Russian-doctor-plunges-coronavirus-hospital-window.html

Sounds a lot like China or North Korea. Intimidation is still the bedrock of tyrannical regimes.

Totally random.

None for ages and then three come along at once.

Good old Poisson!

Where's Martyn when you need him?

There are two points: initial claims that the cases were all linked to the wet market and there was no evidence of person-to-person transmission and then later a claim that it wasn't contagious - since it required close contact.

"The first instances of the viral infection had been linked to a seafood market in the city of Wuhan that is now closed. Chinese officials had previously said that the virus did not appear to spread person-to-person"

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/person-to-person-spread-of-novel-coronavirus-confirmed-in-china--66995

Also a good summary here, which includes, "The first issue was the repeated claims by officials that human-to-human transmission of the virus was limited."

https://www.ft.com/content/fa83463a-4737-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441

Immunity passports back in the news (well on the front page of tomorrow's Guardian at least). One problem i have with these is that someone who has stayed at home (maybe from well before the lockdown), behaved responsibly and not caught the virus could now be forced to stay at home for even longer whereas someone who paid scant attention to the warnings, caught it, didnt get that ill but passed it onto others likely killing a couple of old people, would now have the right to have more freedom. I realise life isnt fair and that we have to get things going, maybe the immunity passport will mostly refer to work things, but i will be interested to see what they intend to do. If you are someone who isnt in an at risk category, ie a healthy under 40 there could even be an incentive to now catch it from a selfish level to give you more freedom.

If R0 is below 1, why are cases increasing?

A few days ago the % was 2.x now it's 3.x

Saw this on twitter earlier but now mentioned on the BBC for what its worth. An intensive care chief in Paris has revisited 24 tests done in previous months from patients who had respiratory problems but which returned negative at the time for flu and other coronaviruses. One positive was found - from December 27th. Not sure of the translation from a French article but one lead is that it seems that the patients wife works with people of Chinese origin, so maybe there was a link with someone having been to China shortly beforehand.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52524001

As discussed on here before, if this exact strain was present in the west at that time then surely it would have quickly affected a lot of people resulting in a large rise in deaths. Be interesting to hear more details of this and see what develops.

There are so many things that don't add up.

Firstly the dry cough and fever so many people had in December/January..if it was a strain of COVID why wasn't there many excess deaths?

Secondly, studies showing this was around since December at least...why didn't it spread accordingly?

Thirdly, Sweden cases suggest the virus has already met some resistance...people have been previously infected? 

Because an average R value for the entire country is likely to fit around a bell curve with values either side. It doesn’t exclude the probability of areas having a value well above 1.

Well exactly, I meant specifically for NW England.

It depends on whether you are referring to new cases or total cases. Given the longevity of the disease even a small R0 value will see total case numbers increase due to the length of time people have the disease. Although there will be a time lag with this too.

If it is new cases then it probably needs to be looked at over a period of several days.