Some Northern lockdown charts of new cases by test date + 7-day ave (subject to change after 30 July).

Couple of points to note:

1. Effect of lockdown would not be observed until, say, 5 Aug given time between infection & test.

2. Cases will partly reflect ramp up of testing.

Let's start with Greater Manchester.

Bolton: slight rise in the average over past couple of weeks but nothing remarkable.

Bury: increase up to 27th July (but still less than 5 cases per day), looks to be stabilising already.

Manchester: fairly steep increase up to 30 July. Early signs that might be starting to stabilise. We will see.

Oldham: sharp increase to about 20 cases per day, looks to have flattened off over past week.

Rochdale: decreasing since 20 July and not much of an increase to start with. And it is still part of the lockdown???

Salford: steady increase but only up to 28 July and average 10 cases per day or less. You would think the BBC would be on top of this one!

Stockport: another fairly steep increase which already looks to be stabilising.

Trafford: peaked on 27 July and clearly coming down now.

Tameside: spikes on 29-30 July but not much since (some intensive testing on those dates perhaps?)

And finally for GM, Wigan: 11 cases on 23 July but average only about 3 per day.

I can't see strong evidence of an exponential increase in cases in a single one of the Greater Manchester boroughs. In fact, most seem to be stabilising before Northern lockdown even announced.

Any thoughts @AndyBurnhamGM ?