Covid statistics suggest schools are likely to be closed soon

Here are the numbers that show why schools are very unlikely to re-open any time soon in London and the south east, and why within a week or so the whole country may be in a lockdown that includes school closures.

Tier 4, the so-called “stay-at-home tier”, is broadly equivalent to the two-week circuit-breaking lockdown that was imposed in November.

It did not include school closures, but it suppressed the rate of transmission of Covid-19 to 0.85 or 0.9. In other words it led to the infection gradually shrinking in the community.

Unfortunately, since then we’ve witnessed the explosive growth of the new strain of Covid-19.

Here is the point: the accumulating evidence, analysed by experts at Imperial College, Edinburgh University, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Public Health England among many others, is that the increased transmissibility of the new strain, its infectiousness, is at the top end of initial estimates.