My jaw slightly dropped on Friday when Michael Gove announced that the number of Covid-19 cases in the UK was now doubling every three to four days.
This is significantly faster than the five days that was initially built into the government’s forecasts for the rate of increase in sufferers, and the 4.3 days that epidemiologist Neil Ferguson told me on 17 March was the new estimated ‘baseline’ doubling time.
On the one hand, this accelerated rate of infection explains why the government moved to enforce much more severe measures to restrict social interaction just over a week ago, because presumably its scientific advisers had more than an inkling that the virus was spreading significantly faster than would allow hospitals to cope.
To be clear, the acceleration in the number of reported cases does not mean the new restrictions on our ability to mix with people have failed. The chief medical officer Chris Whitty and chief science adviser Patrick Vallance believe there is a two to three week lag between the introduction of social-distancing measures and the rate at which the virus spreads through the population.
But it is now 12 days since Boris Johnson announced a first round of restrictions on our ability to socialise or be close to other people and so it would be concerning if the rate of spread of the infection did not slow at all next week.
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