Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Covid has all but left London. Why?

(Getty Images) 
issue 30 May 2020

My partner, Julian, hovered at my shoulder on Friday as I tapped out my Times Saturday column (about travel quarantine). I’d slipped in a paragraph with my own thoughts about the transmission of Covid-19. ‘Cut the lot,’ he said. ‘You’re not an epidemiologist. Nobody’s interested in your theories.’ This was probably good advice so I put my own thoughts on hold.

Until now. Because something’s still nagging me. I know I’m not an epidemiologist, but silences speak loud in science, and from those experts put up for media interview I notice a curious silence — a silence on what feels like a most important report and, from their interviewers, a timidity about pressing them.

The question the experts should be asked is about London. Why has coronavirus fled the capital?

London is now recording only a handful of new cases every day, while infections across the rest of the country are dropping far more slowly.

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