ARCHIVE 21 Dec 2020: faster spread in some tier 4 areas

https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1341127391553462272

TINY THREAD: Tier 4, potential Tier 4, Covid Spread in two plots.

Takeaway - Tier 4 is surrounded by Tier 2 areas - those Tier 2 areas are rising much faster than Tier 2 areas further away from Tier 4. Govt must act now. 1/4

Firstly, just looking at weekly cases per 100,000 people within each of the (current) tiers you can see that Tier 4 dipped much less in lockdown, started rising just before and is accelerating faster than the NE and NW ever did. Only Tier 3 is sort of stable. 2/4

Secondly, if we look at Tier 2 areas in regions near Tier 4 (East, SE, E Mid) they are now *also* rising much faster than Tier 2 areas in regions that are further away (NW, NE, Yorks, SW, W Mids). 3/4

This might not be because of a new strain - *but* it is all certainly consistent with there being a highly transmissable new strain. Govt *must act now* & not wait for this worsening situation to get even worse. 4/4

PS all data are "specimen date" (date someone took a test). This means these charts only go up to 16th December because most recent days data will still be filtering in over next few days.