North / South epidemiology and the economic implications 

A thread 

A few have asked why the north has far higher rate of infection and why take off faster

(It is one for the epidemiologists to sort

Probably no single answer)

1

Why sooner & faster in north

timing lockdown release in June & differential impact

London had earlier peak (more concentrated pop, more connected city, travel related seeding) but had subsided to lower level of infection than rest of country (particularly north) by mid June
2

Was once a good BBC analysis on the impact of release of national lockdown on deaths in the north 

Argument was lockdown end was timed to epidemic curve in London

3

Easy to say but govt policy seems London / SE centric (obviously) thus when lockdown released higher residual infection (and a bit lower illness induced immunity – 10% vs c6% - but that prob not a dealbreaker) in the north

4

Given that death is an indicator of level of community easy to make a case about higher infection rate in the north at the point of lockdown release 

Corroborated by check back over the PHE surveillance reports going back months 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/weekly-covid-19-surveillance-report-published

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My guess is poorer performance on contact tracing (I've not done the analysis on that) in north vs south

6

Also contributing to speedier take off is the mix is different economy and workforce structure 

In general, the jobs that can’t be done remotely are lower paid (and more prevalent in the North), so again the most deprived/BAME/young people are impacted the most.

7

@CentreforCities argue the same point about it effectively being the Greater SE v the rest (apart from the odd city like Leeds and Edinburgh)

less than 40% can work from home versus 60% in London

HT @LouisaBenchmark for the find

8

To demonstrate at city level one of my team did an awesome visualisation of that

Upshot = early on infection equally spread across the deciles, but then concentrates in decile 2-4 (where all the low pay / face to face work is)

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Poorer isolation on account of financial  issues inherent in above rather than north south differences in inherent compliance

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So there is earlier and faster take off in the north

Can be explained by underpinning epidemiology, London centric policy making, structural factors in the economy and incomplete contact tracing and isolation 

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Yet now we have - for understandable and valid reasons - suppression interventions that will exacerbate geographic economic inequality 

12/

Then take off accelerated by reopen of school and uni

Education is good and an inherent economic investment 

Good thread on uni / pub trade off is well articulated here

https://twitter.com/MikeOtsuka/status/1316246341752950788?s=20

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