The view from "Bradford"

[The King of Prussia]

For the purposes of "Matt" Hancock (the man who didn't know the difference between Keighley and Kirklees) we live in Bradford. But in our local area (west of Keighley) statistics tell us that there are, at most, 4 active cases. There could well be none. The local hospital trust which serves a wide area has suffered 1 Covid death in the last 53 days. But we are back in lockdown.

In "Bradford" as a whole new cases are running at about 40 a day, which is up from when lockdown was eased - but is less than the level just a few days before 4th July.

If there are statistics for hospital admissions I can't find them, but the numbers were described as "dwindling" last week.

At the height of the pandemic (when testing figures were substantially lower than they are now) there were 123 deaths across the three Bradford hospitals in one 2 week period. In the latest 2 week period there were 4.

Despite the increasing test numbers the number of deaths is, it appears, still falling - although the numbers now are so small it's hard to discern a trend anymore.

We have been told, most unpleasantly, by two of Mr Hancock's fellow-travellers, that the problem is being caused by people of south asian heritage in central Bradford. And we are told that people of south asian heritage are 4 times likelier to die from Covid-19. Which begs the question - if all that is true, why is hardly anyone dying?

So there are lots of positive tests, but nowhere near as many as there were in mid-May or early June (and THOSE high testing numbers didn't lead to an upsurge in deaths). Hospital admissions are "dwindling", there are very, very few deaths. So why lockdown again?

[Denzil_DC]

1. The response needs to be agile and granular,

more agile and granular than this lazy, corrupt, shiftless UK government can apparently be bothered with.

Where's our cryptic primest of prime ministers Cummings now? He's boasted of being highly familiar with goings-on outside the M25. Surely, given his familiarity with relative backwaters like Barnard Castle and his self-proclaimed prowess as a superforecaster, he could formulate a clearer idea of what's going on on the ground?

Or maybe that takes too much effort, and it's easier to blame segments of the population for all the shortcomings of his government.

[T_i_B]

2. The deprived bit of Yorkshire where I work has narrowly escaped lockdown

Although many of us think it's only a matter of time before the area where I work does get locked down due to a spike in cases.

A number of cases have been traced to a particularly rough former Wetherspoons pub. Things are much more complex than the people blaming Muslims for everything would have you believe.