It's weird, right? Exponential curves are really counter-intuitive. When they go up, they go up FAST. Timing matters, a lot.

By staying home *this week* rather than *next week*, one person could prevent an extra 1800 infections. One person!

And as @jkottke pointed out, assuming a 1% death rate, that's 18 lives saved.

18 lives saved, by the choices of one person to stay home for the week starting 13 March, rather than the following week.

That Stereophonics gig? Was on 14 March.

I'm not singling them out, honestly I'm not. They're a great band, I really like them! I'm not tagging them, because what use would that do?

And I'll say again: those figures were based on US infection numbers at that point, with 30% growth rate per day. It's not the UK.

And.

In a pandemic, every day counts. Every *hour* counts. And the UK government wasted two whole weeks.

Which weeks?

Ireland cancelled Paddy's Day on 9 March, initiating a series of rolling, controlled restrictions, from school closures & large group bans (12 March), to closure of non-essential businesses & social distancing, to full lockdown.

It was precise, clearly communicated, controlled.

The UK closed their schools on 20 March, a full week after we closed ours.

Full lockdown came to the UK on 23 March.

And while there was some muddied, confused advice in the UK between times (avoid non-essential travel from 16 March? don't go to the pub, but then again, they're still open, so maybe do?) - there was an abrupt about-turn, after the Imperial College report came out.

The comparisons aren't neat between the two countries, because the processes (and nomenclature) were different.

Technically, the UK went into lockdown *before* Ireland; but that's not a fair comparison, as we were already operating our 'Delay Phase' from 12-27 March.

But I would argue the crucial difference lies in that two-week period: from 9 March, when we cancelled Paddy's Day, to 23 March, when the UK govt finally (and abruptly) wheeled about, and went into lockdown.

Two weeks.

And because the UK government delayed, distorted and distracted for those two weeks, the UK people ended up on the wrong part of an exponential curve, when lockdown started.

And now, the UK has over twice the number of deaths per capita than Ireland.

But wait, it's worse!

HOW how HOW can it be worse.

Because: testing.

Because the UK figures only include deaths, in hospitals, from people who had already been tested positive for COVID-19.

That sentence has a whole pile of clauses and commas, doesn't it? Let's break it down.

It means that a person could die *in a UK hospital* of the coronavirus; and all their doctors could agree that yes, they definitely died of coronavirus; and their *death cert* says that yes, they did, in fact, die of coronavirus -

... and they wouldn't be included in UK figures

Because they weren't tested.

And you have to have a positive test, before death, to be counted in the UK deaths.

The UK isn't testing nearly as much as it needs to.

And Ireland is testing a *lot* more. We have a drive-through testing centre in the sacred sporting grounds of Croke Park - think turning Wembley Station into a testing centre, and you get somewhere close.

Ireland is still building its testing capacity, but we've been explicitly following the South Korean model of test, test, test (and contact trace). And we're using our time in lockdown to build our testing network.

The aim is to have 15,000 tests per day, or 105,000 tests per week - that is, testing 2% of the population a week.

15,000 tests is about 7 months of flu testing for Ireland – and we're planning this, every day, for months and months.

We're not there! We had to grab Germany for a dig-out, we fell so far behind! There's loads of teething problems! Like I said at the top of the thread: I'm not saying that Ireland is a paragon of virtue here.

And: we ARE building this testing network.

And to date, Ireland has performed 8.69 tests per 1,000 people.
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing#ireland

The UK has performed 4 tests per 1,000 people. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing#united-kingdom

So: to my UK friends, let's lay it out there.

You're testing at half the rate that Ireland is, and your loved ones, your family, your friends are dying over twice as fast.

And that's still a wild underestimate of how bad things are, because your low testing rates are artificially depressing your death figures; whereas Ireland's high testing rate is (comparatively) inflating ours (or, more fairly, accurately recording them in our figures).

I say this not in some kind of coronavirus Olympics. I say this with a knot in my stomach.

I lived for long periods of time in the UK, and I have loved ones still living there, people whose safety I'm desperately afraid for.

I say this because: you are being failed.

Failed by your government, and failed by your media.

Failed, by news reports that (correctly!) talk about how horrific the death toll is in NYC, while eliding the horrors of nearly 1000 people dying in a single day at home.

Failed, because it didn't have to be like this.

Failed, because there are lessons and exchanges to be found here, but in those 2 weeks when so much could have been done, your media didn't pay any heed to what was happening beside it.

Because your media didn't report on the contrast between Boris' choices and ours.

Failed, because your media STILL isn't reporting on the contrasts in death rates between us, and why that might be the case.

Failed, because in this long-standing, complicated, skewed relationship between us, we can see you clearly, and you seem to barely see us at all.

And it breaks my heart.

But there's still time.

Time to flatten your curve. Time to build testing. Time to develop a robust contact tracing system.

Time to *use* your lockdown as it should be used, while we do the same.

Time to be our partners in this, as we all must be, in a globalised pandemic.

The best time to plant an oak tree was 20 years ago; the second-best time is now.

The best time to stop this pandemic was last January. The second-best time is now.

And while we're working this ground together, remember that over the fence, in your neighbouring allotment, we're tackling the same tasks as you. It might be worth taking a peek over the fence sometime, to see what we can share.