Did the England and Wales first lockdown work?

The chart of deaths attributed to Covid-19 is derived from ONS weekly deaths data up to week 37 of 2020 published 29 Sep 2020.

Chart of deaths and cumulative deaths England and Wales Jan-Sep 2020


The graph of cumulative deaths (green curve) has a distinctive shape. It looks like a Gompertz curve. We can use a statistics application (R version 3.4.4 (2018-03-15)) to work out which mathematically correct Gompertz curve has the closest match to reality.

Chart of cumulative deaths and best-fit Gompertz curve England and Wales Jan-Sep 2020

The calculated curve has the formula (5.17E+04 * exp(-3.61E+02 * exp(-5.64E-02 * dayno))) where dayno=1 is 1 Jan 2020.

We can plot the (small) differences that there are between reality and the calculated values (blue curve, scale to the right).

Chart of cumulative deaths and best-fit Gompertz with differences England and Wales Jan-Sep 2020

From the above I conclude that the first lockdown did not work as intended. The lockdown did not cause an immediate or proximate decline in infection rate leading to the decline in deaths 16 days later. The proposed 16-day lag between lockdown and peak deaths is not apparent in the data.

Lockdown did not have a massive effect on the infection rate and so was not effective in causing the death rate or disease rate to begin to decline from 8 Apr 2020 or therefore to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed.

We should now explore the possibility that lockdown had a more subtle effect:

The first lockdown in England and Wales did not work.

Key points:

Check out the next post for an analysis of the second and third lockdowns in England and Wales.

I realise that almost all of the above is about England and Wales but here is a quote from Scottish Health Secretary Humza Yousaf (BBC article from 19 Jun 2022):

We are seeing higher numbers of infections across our communities at the moment which is why booster vaccination is needed to maintain the best protection for those at highest risk of severe effects from the virus.

Vaccination has been our most effective tool against coronavirus. However, the degree of protection offered wanes over time.

Almost 90% of over-75s and around two thirds of those who are immunosuppressed have already taken a spring booster.

We continue to encourage everyone to receive the doses they are eligible for as and when they become available.

Did you spot the point that "Vaccination has been our most effective tool against coronavirus"? So, the most effective tool has not been lockdown - at least, not in Scotland.

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Chart of deaths and cumulative deaths England and Wales Jan-Sep 2020

*There are inconsistencies in the data entry for the above spreadsheet. Sometimes dates have been entered as date values and sometimes as text. The data were transcribed to correct this.