Three-Tier Lockdowns Make No Difference, Data Shows

We keep hearing that the three-tier system is working and explains why infections have been slowing and falling around the country. But what’s the evidence for this? A Lockdown Sceptics reader takes a closer look.

Chris Whitty and others have claimed that the restrictions have had an impact on helping curtail the spread. They clearly feel that non-essential shopping and restaurant/bar activity is at the heart of controlling the spread as it is the main difference between a Tier 3 level restriction and the current nationwide Lockdown.

In the graph I plot the Google Mobility data for “retail and recreation” for four cities and I’d say it raises some serious question marks about that assumption.

(As a quick aside, Google Mobility data tracks the difference in frequency and time spent in certain places for anyone with an Android phone who hasn’t turned off their location privacy sharing. This is a lot of people – Android is around 70% share of the mobile market. It is expressed as a percentage change versus the baseline i.e. the normal levels pre-Covid. There are multiple classifications like parks, residences and workplaces but we’re looking in particular at retail and recreation which includes restaurants and bars etc.)

The cities chosen are Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol and London – picked because they have differing levels of Covid infection rates. Their mobility figure rises from the spring lockdown low of -80% all the way up to -10% in Liverpool, for instance, at the end of August. The cities all start to slope back down as Eat Out to Help Out expires and the summer ends.

What seems apparent to me is that the Government restrictions (marked with the arrows) had very little impact on underlying activity in retail and recreation, despite what may have been said. Ultimately the positive test rate has plateaued or flat lined of its own accord.

This, to my mind, suggests that retail and recreation, which has currently been locked down, seems to have very little correlation with whether cases are rising or falling, placing serious questions over the most recent restrictions, which particularly target and harm the sector.

The absence of any discernible change in retail and recreation mobility when major restrictions like the Rule of 6 came in speaks against the efficacy of the measures. While we can see an impact on mobility data in, say, Manchester when it moved to Tier 3 on October 23rd, this had little to do with infections in the city slowing and flatlining, as we saw that happening weeks earlier before the end of September. Likewise we can see the impact on mobility data when Liverpool moved into Tier 3 on October 14th, but infections had stopped rising a week earlier.

Those who claim the three-tier system is responsible for slowing or declining infections need to produce evidence for that, as the data does not appear to be on their side.

By Will Jones

https://lockdownsceptics.org/