Is the UK actually ‘past the peak’ of coronavirus?

Charting new daily cases of Covid-19 reveals UK is a long way behind other countries lifting lockdown measures

On 30 April, Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared that the UK was “past the peak” of the coronavirus outbreak.

In the week since, there have been more than 25,000 new confirmed cases of Covid-19, and close to 5,000 people have died from the virus.

The latest death toll of 30,076 makes the UK the worst hit country in Europe, and second only to the US globally.

But after a sharp increase in daily new cases in late March and early April, the number has levelled off in recent weeks, thanks in part to lockdown measures put in place on 23 March.

Unlike other badly affected countries that have introduced lockdowns, however, the UK is yet to see any sustained decline in new cases.

Other countries in Europe were initially hit far harder than the UK by the coronavirus, leading the World Health Organisation to declare Europe the epicentre of the pandemic on 13 March.

A severe outbreak in northern Italy saw it become the first country outside of Asia to introduce a lockdown, which soon spread nationwide and then to Ireland, Spain and other European countries.

The lockdowns were often far stricter than the one put in place in the UK on 23 March. Italy banned outdoor exercise, while France enforced its lockdown with hundreds of thousands of fines for people breaking the rules.

Both countries hit their peaks within around two weeks of the lockdowns starting, and In the weeks following there was a steady decline in new daily cases.

It took 55 days for Italy to begin to emerge from its lockdown. France plans to begin lifting containment restrictions on 11 May – also 55 days after it entered lockdown.

By this measure, the UK should begin easing its lockdown on 17 May, however its trajectory for new confirmed cases is far behind its European neighbours.

On 6 May, Italy recorded its lowest number of new daily cases since before its lockdown began on 9 March. France crossed this threshold of new daily cases dipping below pre-lockdown levels on 1 May.

It has been 45 days since the UK entered its comparatively lax lockdown, and new daily cases of 4,406 (on Wednesday 7 May) remain more than six-times higher than pre-lockdown levels.

These daily levels are also not far off the UK’s highest three-day average peak of 6,400 daily cases, which was similar to that of France, Italy and Spain.

Trends from other countries suggest it is too early to tell whether the UK is actually past its peak, and medical experts warn that lifting lockdown measures too early could result in a new wave of infections.

Despite this, plans to lift the UK’s lockdown appear to already be in place, with Johnson announcing on Wednesday his intention for an “unlockdown” from as early as next week.