Thread by @MichaelSFuhrer

The UK is often held up as a cautionary tale regarding covid and re-opening.

Let's have a look at what happened in the UK and see if there are parallels to what is happening in Australia.

Thread.
1/🧵

At the beginning of 2021 the UK was fighting a crushing wave of alpha with months of lockdown. As that wave receded, the UK began to release restrictions.

2/🧵

Restrictions were released at a very early stage of the vaccination program:

The UK "picnic day" and end of local-area restrictions to movement occurred on 29 March at 5.6% of total population vaxxed.

Outdoor dining/pubs opened 12 April at 11.5% vax.

3/ 🧵

Household visits and indoor hospitality re-opened 17 May at 30.1% vax.

Importantly, cases continued to fall through this period of relaxing restrictions.

On 17 May, daily cases were less than 4% of their January peak, 33 cases/M/day (equiv to 270 cases/day in NSW)).

4/🧵

Then delta came. By the end of May, the delta variant made up 73% of UK cases.

Cases started to rise again.

Restrictions were never reimposed, though "Freedom Day" was delayed from 21 June to 19 July.

5/🧵

The entirety of the UK's delta wave occurred with public health settings much lower than NSW's planned settings at 70% double vax, and also at lower vaccination.

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By the time Freedom Day finally arrived (at vax 45.95%), the delta wave was already cresting.

In fact, cases declined after Freedom Day--no one really knows why but there are several theories.

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I find it hard to identify any parallels to the Australian context.

Current situation in NSW has no parallel anywhere:

NSW has brought case growth to a halt during a large delta outbreak, using public health measures and vaccination. No other country has done this.

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The UK never tried to contain delta. Relaxing restrictions occurred during the tail of alpha wave, and were never reimposed for delta.

Australia has fought to contain delta with months of lockdown plus vaccination at higher speed than UK ever achieved, and it is working.

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This doesn't mean we know how to re-open safely in Australia!

But it does mean that comparison to the UK is completely unfounded.

Australia is not following the path of the UK, and there is zero reason to expect the same outcome.

10/🧵

Do we have any evidence from other countries that delta CAN be controlled with vaccination and public health measures, without lockdown?

Stay tuned for the next thread!

11/11🧵

Addendum:

As stated in the thread, the vaccination levels for the UK are as percentage of the total population.

NSW's 70% target is for 16+ population, corresponding to 56% of total pop. (Though inclusion of 12+ will make it higher.)

12/11🧵