THREAD: In this piece for @IanDunt 4 weeks ago, I wrote about the "relentless doubling" of Covid deaths in England & that any new measures would not prevent deaths over the coming 4 weeks because they would mostly be among people who already had Covid. https://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2020/10/20/a-circuit-break-will-save-thousands-of-lives

Given that relentless doubling of deaths, I wrote "It's likely 2,000 people will die over the next two weeks and 4,000 the two weeks after that.". Sadly, it was even worse. 2,553 died in the two weeks to 1st Nov & 4,328 have died over the last 2 weeks... ( https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths )

A Sept 21st circuit break as recommended by SAGE could have prevented many of those deaths. I am v glad we started lockdown on 5th November but it was NOT soon enough to help the thousands who will die over the next 2 weeks. It also won't be as effective after missing half term.

Case growth has slowed so the doubling will slow too - and then stop as cases come down. BUT it's time govt learned that exponential growth + the long lag between infection & deaths, means saving lives next month means acting NOW. Stop waiting until you're sure it's bad. Please.

And it's not just about deaths - At least 615,000 people had Covid in England 21/9-5/11 (plus those who never got a test). Not acting in September means hundreds of thousands more people are now at risk of #LongCovid and other complications. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/15/damage-to-multiple-organs-recorded-in-long-covid-cases

I'm writing this because it's NOT good enough for govt to say this is unprecedented or that no one could have predicted it. Many people, inc SAGE, DID predict it. We can't do this again. END