Why is the R rate in London...

I don’t know if it’s a factor, but I imagine there’s less warehouses and factories in London? Most London employers will be office based, all of which can work from home. Yes, the tube is a massive problem, but that transport is still way down than normal, if the figures are to be believed. We see the images of the tube, but in fairness most are wearing masks from what I’ve seen in the last few weeks.

 

As I say, just putting it out there. Apparently 1/5 of Londoners have already been infected, so you'd expect transmission rates to go down. I'm not sure what the definition of "London" is in the study - is it just zone 1 or all surrounding areas? If you're only talking about zone 1 where the shops and big offices are then it makes more sense to me, less so if you are talking about Greater London.

 

I do not know why its lower, but surely we can blame the Tories and BoJo for this.

 

Is it always the same people travelling though? So they’ve already passed it back and forth amongst themselves?

 

Is that unique to London, or would it also apply to the rest of the country?

 

I suspect that the peak happened more quickly in London so Lockdown has a greater impact. Although we saw packed tubes etc they were running at reduced levels.

 

I do think there's a tendency in this thread to find reasons why the people of London are socially distancing more than the rest of us, which, to me, is looking in entirely the wrong direction. For a start, from the footage we have seen, that is implicitly incorrect, but even without that footage, they're people like the rest of us and one would imagine act in accordance with the rest of us. Surely, it's something else? I don't know what that something else is, but I'm pretty sure that it's not because the people of our biggest city are all avoiding each other while the rest of us aren't.

 

I think on the whole if you're in a position of high power you have a certain tendency to see yourself as indestructible
Look at Johnson, I think he totally underestimated how it could affect him.

 

There's no doubt that London had far more infections before the rest of us, but the model we've been given does not predict a peak with so few infections, it should continue going up, exponentially, which is the point I'm making. If that was the peak, why? We were told it would go on and on until everyone had it.

Obviously, the measures we put in place reduced R, but it shouldn't have reduced it more in a place that already had far more infections than the rest of us. What's happened in London doesn't fit the model.

 

I'm now beginning to doubt whether he ever had it. The timing of him disappearing and cummings disappearing at exactly the same time doesn't quite stack up. We all know Boris is an idiot who has to be spoonfed lines, well if your feeder is on holiday you are best going into hiding

 

I think the hospital would have let something slip if that was the case.

 

Perhaps but I've not seen much from the hospital confirming it either. No comments from patients he shared a ward with or anything.

Alternatively is it possible that Cummings never had it and it was a convenient excuse for a trip while he wasn't needed by his hospitalised boss?

 

My neighbour is a relative of the surgeon who looked after him in hospital.
Apparently he was very witty and affable throughout.

 

Should have Harold Shipmanned him and done us all a favour

 

We've heard from the nurses though, a number of interviews. Again, sorry, I don't agree. Silly bugger went around shaking hands with Covid-19 sufferers, he looked in a hell of a state in some of his subsequent interviews, despite the best work of the makeup artist. He's daft, and because he's daft he nearly killed himself. He's also a liar, I grant you that, but the lies in this instance were those claiming him to be OK when he wasn't, not the other way around.

I think. If it turns out to be one big hoax, btt this.

 

think you are barking up the wrong tree here. Patients in ICU are critically ill. Survival is less than 50/50

 

again just my guess but in all countries that have locked down there has been a decrease in cases. London is more populous which can be both a hood and a bad thing but as they were further along the peak they are just a couple of weeks in front of us coming out the other side.

 

Maybe if London is x number of weeks ahead of the rest of the country and the R rate is lower here than elsewhere, then in x weeks the R rate in Yorkshire will be lower than the current London R rate because it is less densely populated. Or summat.

 

But London's R rate was apparently decreasing before lockdown began which doesn't make any sense

 

I also think I'm wrong by the way but I also think it shows just how deeply I distrust Boris Johnson that I have an easier time believing a conspiracy theory than I do believing that he caught a highly contagious virus.