Coronavirus 31

Here is a graph. It was not shown at the Downing Street Briefing yesterday afternoon but it was reported by Chris Giles at The Financial Times.

Here are the numbers. This is where they come from: Office of National Statistics.

Week 13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
27-Mar-20	03-Apr-20	10-Apr-20	17-Apr-20	24-Apr-20	01-May-20	08-May-20	15-May-20
11,141	16,387	18,516	22,351	21,997	17,953	12,657	14,573

The right hand bar, the last number, 14.573, is the one to think about. Maybe just some noise in the data and next week all will be well, but deaths lag behind infection and infection depends on behaviour. This uptick in the total deaths may reflect the change in behaviour around the VE Day bank holiday weekend and the mixed signalling from government about easing of the, already very leaky, lockdown.

All the talk is now about further easing of lockdown. Never mind driving to Barnard Castle to test our eyesight, we drive the country by watching in our rear-view mirror where we went three weeks ago. Only Cassandra is looking forwards.