I think the reason for the length of the current lockdown was the failure all way though to make track and trace good enough to keep the numbers low,
I'm sorry, but as the posters above, track and trace is a complete waste of time in European Countries;
as mentioned, only Germany made a serious effort, and even they had to admit defeat in the end.
TTI (Test-Trace-Isolate) is one of those things which
sounds great in theory, but in practice it only works
where there is extremely low prevalence (i.e. no more than a dozen cases in
the entire country), as per
recent 'outbreaks' in Australia and New Zealand, but which has not been the case in this country since the
outbreak began.
then having failed in that a failure to lock down in September when they really started to increase. Had they got those either of things right then the numbers would have been much lower in December/January
I agree with you that the numbers would inevitably have been lower had the lockdown started in September,
but if numbers had been lower, Christmas probably wouldn't have been 'cancelled', which would have caused
a massive spike in early January, so we would almost certainly be in a similar position as we are now, except
that the cost in economic/mental health terms of a
seven month lockdown from September to April would have
been absolutely catastrophic.
The shape of the graph may look similar but on the peak 7-day average in December/January, Germany was at 25,000 cases and UK 60,000. So Germany did do quite a bit better than the UK.
Sorry, but constantly comparing the UK to other countries (and that includes Sweden!) is a strawman argument.
MARK