Thread by @Dr_D_Robertson

The areas with extra guidance to avoid non-essential travel doesn't make a lot of sense.

A short thread.

Let's look at the list published on Friday.

Here are the areas which have new guidance to avoid non-essential travel to/from these areas.

gov.uk/guidance/covid…

Let's see where they are on the list of B.1.617.2 cases using the latest data from @sangerinstitute

For this, I am *only using the number of sequences in the latest week, week ending 15 May 2021*
covid19.sanger.ac.uk/lineages/raw

Here are the areas with the highest number of sequences in the latest week with data.

(Note that this is biased by surge testing)

So, the question is - why is Burnley on the list when other areas, say Preston isn't?

OK, it could be because some areas have higher populations that others. So let's look at the number of sequences per 100,000 people.

And let's look at North Tyneside, on the extra restrictions guidance list, with just 2 sequences that week

So - on the face of it, it doesn't look very fair.

There may be good reasons why these local authorities are still on the list, and there are caveats in the data covid19.sanger.ac.uk/lineages/raw

So the question is - if guidance was needed for the local authorities to avoid travel to/from these areas, and there are *other* local authorities with significantly higher number of B.1.617.2 cases - why are *those* local authorites not on the list?

The reason may be that there are outbreaks or particular epidemiological reasons in the listed areas.

But it may also be that B.1.617.2 is now so widely dispersed across the country that such guidance would be (relatively) futile.

So the question is - what's the plan now?