How much has this week’s ructions in Downing Street been influenced by the Prime Minister’s decision, two weeks ago, to call for a new 28 day lockdown – and the subsequent questions asked of the data to justify it? On the one side are the 50 or so Conservative MPs who have joined the Covid Recovery Group calling for an end to lockdowns, and the many others who sympathise with them. On the other was Dominic Cummings, believed to be a keen proponent of lockdown.
Last week’s infection survey – the weekly Office of National Statistics study showing the prevalence of Covid-19 in the general population – suggested that the number of people with the disease had begun to level off even before the announcement of the new lockdown on 31 October.
But the survey did once before, in late September, record a levelling off in the prevalence of infections, only for them to rebound the following week.
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