she often does the WHO press conferences, which are quite informative, but our media don't bother. 

There are no doubt plenty of reasons why China can be criticised but I don't think the timing of their lockdown of international borders is really one of them. Maybe if a large part of the world had acted at the same time but they waited two months once they knew anyway.

13,258 in hospital down from 14,248 yesterday

85,186 tests yesterday

3,985 new cases

288 all settings deaths in the UK

Daily slides 

Daily tests

New cases

People in hospital

Critical care

All settings deaths with rolling average

Italy

• 1,221 new cases


• 195 new deaths

This might be worth a read for anyone interested.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Jesty

Nick

The Isle of Wight thing is my idea word for word!

Looks like the drop is due to Northern Ireland's data not being available. In fact the number in hospital looks flat otherwise.

Regional data for new cases today in England

The 7 English regions 

• London +160 (0.6%) 24,988


• Midlands +279 (1.3%) 20,931


• North West +303 (1.5%) 20,428


• North East and Yorkshire +266 (1.4%) 19,233


• South East +219 (1.2%) 17,756


• East of England +134 (1.2%) 11,077


• South West +82 (1.2%) 6,571

The 10 local areas with the highest cases

1. Kent +63 (1.8%) 3,481


2. Birmingham +24 (0.8%) 2,928


3. Lancashire +42 (1.4%) 2,920


4. Hampshire +26 (0.9%) 2,887


5. Essex +14 (0.5%) 2,664


6. Surrey +18 (0.7%) 2,626


7. Hertfordshire +38 (1.6%) 2,379


8. Sheffield +29 (1.3%) 2,220


9. Cumbria +34 (1.7%) 1,988


10. Staffordshire +35 (1.9%) 1,822

The 10 local areas with the lowest cases

1. Rutland +1 (4.8%) 21


2. Isle of Wight +1 (0.7%) 136


3. North East Lincolnshire +16 (11.2%) 143


4. Hartlepool +4 (2.0%) 201


5. Torbay +2 (1.0%) 208


6. Bath and North East Somerset +3 (1.4%) 215


7. Bracknell Forest +1 (0.5%) 218


8. Calderdale +3 (1.2%) 255


9. North Somerset +2 (0.8%) 256


10. Peterborough 257 - No change

Good spot, did they mention that at the briefing? Agree that if you take the London line then it is fairly flat although generally a slight decrease.

Thought you might have noticed that!

Just for info, from sky website, Isle of Wight has the 8th lowest number of cases per head of population in England. Today has actually seen a record rise in daily cases of 16 (previous two daily highs on 1st May and 26th April were 15).

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-uk-tracker-how-many-cases-are-in-your-area-updated-daily-11956258

No they didn't. But Hancock mentioned the total number in the press conference AND didn't say it was excluding NI. You'll see there's a note at the bottom of the slide stating a problem with NI data.

They should, therefore, have replicated the previous day's number as that will no doubt be closer for comparison purposes. 

To also put the total at the top of that slide and using it as a comparison for the figure a week ago is either shoddy data presentation, or deliberately misleading. I'd go for the former, as no doubt the NI data will be back tomorrow and I don't suppose they'll mention a rise of nearly 1,000.

Remains to be seen whether this line of thought has any merit but there seems to be a growing number of people thinking this way - 

https://unherd.com/thepost/nobel-prize-winning-scientist-the-covid-19-epidemic-was-never-exponential/

"I think the policy of herd immunity is the right policy. I think Britain was on exactly the right track before they were fed wrong numbers. And they made a huge mistake. I see the standout winners as Germany and Sweden. They didn’t practise too much lockdown and they got enough people sick to get some herd immunity. I see the standout losers as countries like Austria, Australia and Israel that had very strict lockdown but didn’t have many cases. They have damaged their economies, caused massive social damage, damaged the educational year of their children, but not obtained any herd immunity.

There is no doubt in my mind, that when we come to look back on this, the damage done by lockdown will exceed any saving of lives by a huge factor."

Italy death toll may be far higher, report suggests

From the BBC ticker:

"Italy may be relaxing its lockdown but the death toll from coronavirus could be far higher than has currently been reported, a new report says.

The Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) says thousands of fatalities not officially attributed to Covid-19 could have been caused by the virus.

The official death toll in Italy stands at 28,884, the second highest total in the world after the US. But from 21 February, when the first Covid-19 deaths occurred in Italy, until March 31, nationwide deaths were up 39% compared to the average of the past five years.

Of the 25,354 excess deaths during the period, coronavirus was registered as the official cause for 13,710, leaving around 11,600 unaccounted for.

ISTAT said these people may either have died of coronavirus without being tested or that the extra pressure on the health system meant they died of other causes they were not treated for".

How many more revisions? Certain countries not reporting their true figures, for whatever reason. Just shows we should not get too hung up on actual numbers in datasets that really ARE NOT comparing like for like.

The last sentence is spot on, we have ruined the lives of the many to save the few.

​

25 person lockdown street party 'with bingo and BBQ' sparks huge police response in Brambles Farm

Quote

A street party sparked a large police response in Brambles Farm. Several police units attended the scene at the junction of Marshall Avenue and Millbrook Avenue, in Middlesbrough, at around 3pm on Monday. A video shows a number of people in the street packed with cars and emergency response vehicles.

Cleveland Police confirmed that around 20-25 people were in the street having a party. Two men, aged 20, have been arrested on suspicion of public order offences and a number of people were issued with warnings for breaching covid-19 regulations.

https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/25-person-lockdown-street-party-18197931

​

Out of the 149 local authorities in england, Middlesbrough has the 3rd highest rate of infection per head of population

Warning: assumptions ahead!

Say, for simplicity's sake, that we've 5% immunity now, i.e. we've actually had around 3.3 million cases.

Gavin D posted these figures earlier:

    0-19 - 11
    20-39 - 152
    40-59 - 1,706
    60-79 - 8,310 (1 is awaiting verification)
    80+ - 11205

A simple 20x multiplication to assume everyone gets it gives:

    0-19 - 220
    20-39 - 3040
    40-59 - 34120
    60-79 - 166200
    80+ - 224100

A total of just over 420000 - not far off the initial herd immuniy estimates.

There are 3281955 over 80s (or were, as per the ONS estimates), so you'd be losing around 7% of them.

Now, from a purely economic point of view it makes sense to just let it rip. Take the losses of economically inactive and already ill people, save the considerable costs of looking after them and gain an economic advantage as the rest of the world continues to struggle (at least until a vaccine is developed). It'd rejuvenate the housing market too and we could all - well, those of us left - get back to normal by the end of the year. Economically, it'd be brilliant.

Society wise? Not so much. And that's why we had the lockdown, of course, as in addition to the raw numbers above there would be lots of extra people dying as the NHS imploded... not to mention the ethical aspects of letting hundreds of thousands die.

Some heartbreaking calls to O'Brien on LBC this morning about the side effects of lockdown - students being forced to pay full fees even though uni is closed. Mental health issues not addressed. Children from separated couples being kept away from one parent by another using lockdown as the excuse, small businesses going bust etc

This cannot go on for much longer or people will start breaking. I know we keep hearing that we love lockdown, but whats the point of being alive if you cant live. 

Just a thought that TV shows, films, other entertainment  production etc have ceased since March. We are going to run out of new material on TV to watch very soon and how can you restart filming with social distancing? 

Other countries coming out of lockdown now and relaxing 2 meter rule will have a huge advantage when they restart production of all goods and services, whilst we remain mothballed

Boris seems to have become over-cautious now, to make up for his lax approach in March. Our economy will be severely damaged as a result. 

The numbers of deaths and infections are falling enough to safely lift restrictions akin to other countries in Europe. We don't need to wait another month, and lose a competitive advantage

Fascinating, thanks for sharing.