Covid-19: Regional Differences
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 15 October 2020
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the U.K. introduces more restrictions to stem the spread of Covid-19, why are there such marked regional differences in the infection rate?
Contributors:
Greg Fell, Director of Public Health, Sheffield City Council
Wendy Burke, Director of Public Health, North Tyneside Council
Dr Susanna Currie, Clinical Director for Cumbria Sexual Health Services at North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust,
Dame Anne Johnson, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at University College London
Dr Michael Tildesley, University of Warwick
Producers: Rosamund Jones, Bob Howard and Kirsteen Knight. Editor: Jasper Corbett
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.2 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Aronovich. |
| 0:10.7 | A virtual room. You, me, the top experts on a big question and 28 minutes. |
| 0:16.8 | Let's go. This week, COVID again. |
| 0:32.9 | I'm confused. You're probably confused. |
| 0:40.0 | The shifting regional tier system for virus suppression can feel like the fabled Schleswig Holstein question, |
| 0:47.9 | which only three people understood, one of whom is dead, one of whom is mad, and me, and I've forgotten it. |
| 0:55.9 | But we do need to understand it, and it's rationale. Why are some places like Liverpool on the highest tier, |
| 1:03.4 | tier three? Some in tier two like London is about to be and still others in tier one. What's put them there? And what actually governs their movement up and more hopefully down? And what can |
| 1:09.2 | local and regional authorities do to affect their fate? |
| 1:12.5 | Come inside the briefing room and together we'll find out. |
| 1:19.9 | First, let's start with what the data tells us. |
| 1:23.2 | Dr Michael Tildesley is an epidemiologist at Warwick University. |
| 1:27.4 | Michael Tildesley, what do we know |
| 1:29.2 | about how infection rates differ? Currently with the infection rates around the UK, the R number |
| 1:35.6 | that we all talk about is greater than one everywhere. In different regions, they're at slightly |
| 1:41.3 | different phases of their epidemics. When we went into lockdown back in March, |
| 1:46.7 | really it was almost because of London. So London was a little bit ahead of everywhere else. |
| 1:51.9 | Now it's actually the north of England and the Midlands that are slightly ahead of other regions in the |
| 1:56.6 | epidemic curve. Where there are differences, what can we say about them? For example, |
| 2:00.7 | we've just |
| 2:01.1 | had news from Northern Ireland, which has had an extremely low level of infection at certain |
... |
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