‘Week earlier UK lockdown might have saved 24,000’

THREE quarters of coronavirus deaths in Britain might have been avoided if the lockdown had started a week earlier, modelling suggests.

Researchers said that if the UK had taken the step seven days earlier its death toll now would be on a par with the 8,000 in Germany and it would have been possible to have a shorter, less economically damaging lockdown.

Britain took the measures on March 23, after 359 deaths were reported. Its death toll is now more than 35,000.

On the same day Germany took such steps – but only 86 fatalities had been recorded there.

Modelling by James Annan, a British scientist, suggests that entering lockdown seven days earlier would have cut the numbers by three quarters.

In a blog, Mr Annan, of Blueskiesresearch.org.uk, wrote: “Implementing the lockdown one week earlier would have saved about 30,000 lives in the current wave (based on official numbers, which are themselves a substantial underestimate). It would also have made for a shorter, cheaper, less damaging lockdown in economic terms.”

Modellers said the calculations showed that even small changes in timing could make a significant difference.

Dr Kit Yates, a senior lecturer in mathematical biology at the University of Bath, said: “It is clear that, had we locked down sooner, we would have reduced the spread earlier, limiting the number of cases and consequently the number of deaths.”

The modelling was revealed on More or Less on BBC Radio 4, which highlighted differences in the testing regimes used by different countries earlier in the epidemic, with Germany carrying out 50,000 tests daily at a time when the UK could not even achieve that weekly. As a result, at the point both countries entered lockdown, Germany had identified around 27,000 cases, while the UK had spotted just 9,000, researchers said.