After surging for months because of the hypercontagious Delta variant, COVID-19 cases in the United Kingdom are rapidly plummeting, raising the question of whether America’s Delta wave could also peak sooner than expected.
“In the United Kingdom … cases are clearly coming down at this point,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, told CNBC on Monday. “If the U.K. is turning the corner, it’s a pretty good indication that maybe we’re further into this than we think, and maybe we’re two or three weeks away from starting to see our own plateau here in the United States.”
The U.K.’s turnaround has been startling in its abruptness and speed. Last week, the leading British COVID modeler told the BBC that the country was “almost certain” to hit 100,000 cases per day — a number that could soar, he added, to 200,000 by the end of summer. U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid made a similar prediction.
Around the same time, the U.K.’s daily case count crossed the 50,000 threshold for the first time since January, and more cases seemed inevitable.
But ever since July 20, the opposite has happened: Cases have fallen for seven straight days, and they have fallen fast. From a high of nearly 54,000 on July 17, the daily tally slid to 43,404 last Wednesday; 39,315 on Thursday; 35,654 on Friday; 31,285 on Saturday and 28,652 on Sunday.
This Monday, the U.K.’s case count slipped below 25,000 — a 50 percent reduction in a single week. It fell further on Tuesday before rising slightly on Wednesday (though to a level still 36 percent below last Wednesday’s mark).
Since it’s premature to offer definitive answers, experts are wary of over-interpreting this steep and unexpected decline — assuming it continues. The U.K. repealed its last remaining COVID restrictions on July 19, and experts warn that unmasked young Britons crowding back into nightclubs could theoretically undo any progress the country has made.
Despite this, the U.K.’s drop in COVID cases could be an encouraging sign for Americans who can’t wait to turn the corner on Delta.
So what’s happening?
A number of things all at once, potentially. Some experts have theorized, as the BBC’s health and science correspondent James Gallagher recently explained, that the European soccer championships, held June 11 to July 11, led to a spike in cases due to people watching the football in crowded pubs and homes — that subsided after the tournament ended. Others have speculated that the start of the U.K.’s summer school holiday around July 20 has reduced the spread among children and parents.
Proponents of this theory point to the fact that Scotland ended its school year weeks earlier than England and was eliminated from the Euros weeks earlier as well. They say that may be why COVID cases started falling in Scotland on July 2 — again, weeks before cases started their decline throughout the U.K. The fact that Scottish cases have continued to plummet ever since — and that hospitalizations, a crucial indicator, have followed suit — may suggest that the rest of the U.K. is not far behind.
Another intriguing data point comes from the Office for National Statistics, which recently estimated that 92 percent of adults in England and Wales have antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 through vaccination or previous infection; the numbers were similar in Northern Ireland and Scotland. The implication here is that after rapidly tearing through the unprotected population — something it does with greater efficiency than any previous variant — Delta is suddenly finding it more and more difficult to spread because so many people have acquired one form of immunity or another.
“We still have enough non-immune people around” — especially minors — “to reverse this trend if we completely stop trying to avoid spreading the infection,” Adam Finn, professor of pediatrics at Bristol University, recently told Financial Times. “But with every passing day another cohort of people, recently immunised, is added to our protection alongside those who have recently had the infection, survived and recovered.”
(continued on next post)
“In the United Kingdom … cases are clearly coming down at this point,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, told CNBC on Monday. “If the U.K. is turning the corner, it’s a pretty good indication that maybe we’re further into this than we think, and maybe we’re two or three weeks away from starting to see our own plateau here in the United States.”
The U.K.’s turnaround has been startling in its abruptness and speed. Last week, the leading British COVID modeler told the BBC that the country was “almost certain” to hit 100,000 cases per day — a number that could soar, he added, to 200,000 by the end of summer. U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid made a similar prediction.
Around the same time, the U.K.’s daily case count crossed the 50,000 threshold for the first time since January, and more cases seemed inevitable.
But ever since July 20, the opposite has happened: Cases have fallen for seven straight days, and they have fallen fast. From a high of nearly 54,000 on July 17, the daily tally slid to 43,404 last Wednesday; 39,315 on Thursday; 35,654 on Friday; 31,285 on Saturday and 28,652 on Sunday.
This Monday, the U.K.’s case count slipped below 25,000 — a 50 percent reduction in a single week. It fell further on Tuesday before rising slightly on Wednesday (though to a level still 36 percent below last Wednesday’s mark).
Since it’s premature to offer definitive answers, experts are wary of over-interpreting this steep and unexpected decline — assuming it continues. The U.K. repealed its last remaining COVID restrictions on July 19, and experts warn that unmasked young Britons crowding back into nightclubs could theoretically undo any progress the country has made.
Despite this, the U.K.’s drop in COVID cases could be an encouraging sign for Americans who can’t wait to turn the corner on Delta.
So what’s happening?
A number of things all at once, potentially. Some experts have theorized, as the BBC’s health and science correspondent James Gallagher recently explained, that the European soccer championships, held June 11 to July 11, led to a spike in cases due to people watching the football in crowded pubs and homes — that subsided after the tournament ended. Others have speculated that the start of the U.K.’s summer school holiday around July 20 has reduced the spread among children and parents.
Proponents of this theory point to the fact that Scotland ended its school year weeks earlier than England and was eliminated from the Euros weeks earlier as well. They say that may be why COVID cases started falling in Scotland on July 2 — again, weeks before cases started their decline throughout the U.K. The fact that Scottish cases have continued to plummet ever since — and that hospitalizations, a crucial indicator, have followed suit — may suggest that the rest of the U.K. is not far behind.
Another intriguing data point comes from the Office for National Statistics, which recently estimated that 92 percent of adults in England and Wales have antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 through vaccination or previous infection; the numbers were similar in Northern Ireland and Scotland. The implication here is that after rapidly tearing through the unprotected population — something it does with greater efficiency than any previous variant — Delta is suddenly finding it more and more difficult to spread because so many people have acquired one form of immunity or another.
“We still have enough non-immune people around” — especially minors — “to reverse this trend if we completely stop trying to avoid spreading the infection,” Adam Finn, professor of pediatrics at Bristol University, recently told Financial Times. “But with every passing day another cohort of people, recently immunised, is added to our protection alongside those who have recently had the infection, survived and recovered.”
(continued on next post)