The four factors that will decide when lockdown will end in the UK

It might seem like we’ve been in lockdown forever, but in reality it’s only been two weeks since Boris Johnson addressed the nation and told us to stay inside.

Now the big questions on everyone’s lips are when will the restrictions start to end, and when will things go back to normal?

According to Sky News, there are four factors that will decide when coronavirus lockdown might be relaxed, and these are new deaths, confirmed cases, infection rate and hospital admissions.

The number of new daily reported deaths

While the number that dominates the media is how many deaths there are each day, this will most likely be the last of the four factors to show the impact of lockdown as the figures lag behind.

This is because death figures take longer to surface, as from infection to either recovery or death can sometimes take up to three or four weeks – the daily death figures we’re seeing now are people who are likely to have contracted Covid-19 before lockdown.

On top of that, it takes time to process a death and inform relatives before it’s officially recorded, meaning even when the death rate decreases it might be a few days before this is reflected in the government’s figures. 

The number of confirmed cases

While the rate of growth in confirmed cases each day has been slowing since last weekend, it’s widely accepted that the actual number of Covid-19 cases is likely to be much higher in the UK.

The government has been rolling out more testing, but this has mostly been for NHS workers, and as more tests of health workers are conducted the number of confirmed cases will rise – as frontline workers are more likely to catch it.

The rate of infection

There’s evidence to suggest social distancing is slowing down the rate or coronavirus infection, with scientists at the London School for Hygiene and Tropical Medicine finding that on average people are now meeting just one person per day, while before lockdown that number was four.

This modelling has been quoted in the government’s daily coronavirus briefings, and suggests that the infection rate could reduce by 75% as a result of lockdown.

The number of hospital admissions

While the rate of people admitted to hospital with Covid-19 in England has been slowing for the last few days, these rates have highlighted how each part of the country is at a different stage of the outbreak.

London has been ahead of everywhere else in the UK for weeks, and is now seeing fewer hospital admissions. However, in the Midlands the admission rate has been up 47% in recent days, and up by 35% in Yorkshire and the North East, while we’ve seen a 25% increase here in the North West.

The death numbers from these regions are also seeing an increase, and University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust is now recording more deaths than anywhere else in England – including London.

When it comes to hospital admissions, this will provide the most consistent trend in the four factors.

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When will we know lockdown is working and we might be able to start lifting it?

Well, we can’t predict an exact date for when this might be, but by monitoring these four factors we’ll get an idea of how the measures are working – hospital admissions will be the best guide for how successful the restrictions are.

Over in Italy – which went into lockdown two weeks before the UK – admissions fell first, and this past weekend the Italians recorded their lowest daily death increase for a fortnight.

This is an example of how lockdown can be effective in slowing down the spread of coronavirus, and if the UK follows Italy’s example we’ll eventually see our way out of this situation.

But we all need to play our part, by following social distancing and isolation guidelines and staying indoors unless absolutely necessary – we can beat this together, by staying apart.