Quote Originally Posted by Witton Park View Post
So we have now had our version of full lockdown for 30 days and of course we had some partial measures in place earlier.

We are still getting 4-6K confirmed cases a day.

I consider that my contacts with other members of the public have dropped to zero. Of course there are transfer contact issues (I touch an infected surface) and the question of whether 2m is enough.

But I have not been in breach of the guidance at all. Neither has my wife, and my 28 year old daughter has more or less camped in the house.

So where are all these new cases coming from?

Look at the timeline for Boris. It's about a 3-4 week cycle from catching, developing symptoms, those symptoms escalating to put you in hospital and then either your decline or recovery leading to being discharged.

So the level of infection being detected (how many are not detected) even with lockdown and the vast majority following rules suggests there are serious errors in the timeline of the development in us, and/or this is more easily transmitted than we had thought.

With such a spread during lockdown, it makes it more likely that it having arrived here in January, many, many people got this in the 10 weeks (quite likely longer) between it arriving and us moving to lockdown.

When you consider that in Italy they are approaching 50 days now, Spain are not far behind them, yet they are also still reporting new cases in the 1'000s per day.

Lockdown seems to have got us to a level of infection higher than pre lockdown. It doesn't add up.
I think the problem is that it is much easier to catch than people realise, and that asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic people can shed it for a long time. It is not just coughs and sneezes that spread it - it can be transferred just from exhaled breath. The 2 metre rule just lowers the chance of catching it, it is not a guarantee, particularly if you are downwind of an infected person. And it can survive on some surfaces for days. Think about in the supermarket - you are walking through invisible cloud after invisible cloud of people's exhaled breath; how many of the items you pick up have been breathed on or touched; how many people do get within 2 metres of you. Sure, the individual's chances of catching it are small, but every day millions of people are having to take the risk. And if they do catch it, all of their close contacts will as well.
And any change that is made - lockdown - takes weeks to be seen in the figures. I think it does add up.