How long will #lockdowns last ? This #thread suggests lockdowns end no earlier than the end of May in Italy and California, followed by most of Europe, but early June for the UK, SA and New York. First lockdowns create a peak in new cases with a 12 day lag as Hubei showed .. https://twitter.com/RencapMan/status/1240667453291671552

How long will #lockdowns last ? No-one quite trusts Chinese data so it was good to see the 10-12 lag between lockdown and a peak in new cases confirmed in Italy, Spain, Belgium, Austria and Czechia. It was 15 days for France. So roughly a two week lag ..

For now, we we have to again use Hubei data, this time for deaths. These kept rising for weeks after the #lockdown on 23 Jan, well after new #coronavirus cases peaked on 2/3 Feb. Deaths were at their highest daily rates roughly 10-21 days after the peak in new cases.

Sometime between 31 Mar and 11 April, Italy deaths should have peaked, and we can lag this for France and Spain by a week and the UK and SA and New York by another week. If Hubei is a reliable guide total deaths should be higher 4-5 times higher than at the point of lockdown

So 25 days after the peak in new cases, we should see a dramatic fall in new daily deaths in Italy, around 15 April. By then Hubei implies Italy will have around 25k deaths. UK to follow around 28 April, at around 17.5k deaths. Both figures will rise another 20% but slowly ..

Governments could loosen the lockdown at end-April. But after policy mistakes (vs east Asia) that caused tens of thousands of deaths, how likely is this? Hubei deaths fell sharply at end-Feb but lockdown ends only 8 Apr - so late May/June for Europe https://twitter.com/QuickTake/status/1242338060811079682?s=20

We do still need to see if Europe/US deaths do follow the Hubei trajectory post-lockdown. It is still too early to be sure. But it makes sense (deaths will fall because lockdowns do work). Hopefully mass testing, smart quarantine policies could end the lockdowns earlier ....