The big events that could have helped spread coronavirus
A year ago, the gathering storm of the first wave of coronavirus was about to hit the UK, sparking debates over whether major events should be called off. Lydia Stephens and Ffion Lewis look back at the controversial major sporting occasions and gigs that had the potential to be ‘super-spreader’ events in the pandemic’s early days
THE first case of coronavirus in Wales was confirmed on February 28, 2020.
But it wasn’t until 24 days later – on Monday, March 23 – that the UK entered its first nationwide lockdown.
A week before that, on March 16, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told people to work from home if they could, and to minimise social contact.
There was effectively a twoweek period at the beginning of
March where large events took place in Wales.
These are the big events that could potentially have been super-spreaders during that period:
Liverpool v Madrid
On March 11, Liverpool’s Champions League match with Atletico Madrid went ahead with more than 50,000 fans in attendance – 3,000 of whom were from Madrid, where a partial lockdown was already in force.
While there is no confirmed link between the match and any coronavirus cases, the UK Government’s deputy chief scientific adviser, Angela McLean, said it warranted further investigation.
“It will be very interesting to see in the future, when all the science is done, what relationship there is between the viruses that have circulated in Liverpool and the
viruses that have circulated in Spain,” she said at the UK Government’s daily coronavirus news briefing on April 20 last year.
It has now been revealed that in the three months leading up to the UK’s coronavirus lockdown, of the 18.1 million people who arrived in the country, just 273 were placed into quarantine.
Chief scientific adviser to the UK Government Sir Patrick Vallance said the UK received a “big influx of cases” from Europe that “seeded right the way across the country”.
Wales v Scotland game
Despite warning signals flashing red across the world, the Wales v Scotland game was still planned to go ahead on March 14 at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff.
Wales’
Health
Minister Vaughan
Gething had said he planned to go. Scotland fans were already on their way to Wales by March 12 for the sellout Six Nations rugby clash.
All other sport in Wales had been called off. Even children’s football was cancelled for the weekend coming. Professional and amateur games at all levels were scrapped.
Yet it was only the following day – Friday, March 13 – with Scotland fans already packed into Cardiff’s bars, that the WRU finally issued a statement to say that the game would not be going ahead.
It left hundreds of Scottish visitors in the city, with nothing else to do but gather and enjoy what the city had to offer in its pubs and clubs instead.
At this point in the pandemic, widespread testing wasn’t available like it is now so it is hard to show how rapidly the virus was spreading on alone.
We do now that in Wales on March 21, 2020, 75 people tested positive for the virus in Wales, a week later that number had doubled and stood at 167 new daily cases.
As far as deaths related to the coronavirus were recorded at this time, on March 21, seven people were reported to have died from the virus in the last 24 hours. By March 28, that daily number was 15.
In Scotland, the situation was very similar, and the first confirmed death of a Scottish patient with Covid-19 was reported on March 13, just 12 days after the first case was identified in the country.
Cheltenham races
cases
Despite rising cases of people confirmed to have tested positive for coronavirus across the UK, between March 10 and March 13 Cheltenham Racecourse held its annual event – playing host to more than 60,000 people each day.
By April 21, mortality figures compiled by the Health Service Journal showed that Gloucestershire hospitals NHS trust, which covers Cheltenham, has recorded 125 deaths, roughly double that in two nearby trusts at Bristol (58 each), and those covering Swindon (67) and Bath (46).
In April last year, a former chief scientific adviser said the Cheltenham festival may have helped to “accelerate the speed” of coronavirus.
Stereophonics gigs
These took place over a two-day period on March 14 and March 15 at the Cardiff Motorpoint arena.
Despite what we know now about mass gatherings leading to an uptake in Covid cases, at the time the gig was following public health advice available, and a spokesperson for the band said calling it off “wasn’t our call”.
Just a day later, on March 16, the first patient in Wales died.
Over a month later, an intensive care consultant described letting the gig go ahead as “downright insane”.
David Hepburn, who works at the Grange Hospital in Newport said: “With retrospect, as disapproving as I was at the time, the decision of Stereophonics to play those gigs in Cardiff at the start of the outbreak seems downright insane now.”
Have any of these events been investigated as a result?
We asked Public Health Wales if any of the events held in Wales had been investigated or if there was any research conducted into their impact.
As of yet, nothing of the kind has taken place.
A Public Health Wales spokesperson said: “There has been no research done into the impact of specific large gatherings of people at events in March 2020, however the evidence is clear that where groups of people are not able to social distance effectively then this provides multiple opportunities for viruses, such as Covid-19, to spread extremely quickly.
“Therefore in order to avoid transmission of the virus, the regulations do not currently allow gatherings of people who do not live in the same household.”