For the past week a fevered discussion about whether Covid cases are really falling or merely plateauing has obscured a more important point: they are no longer rising exponentially.
But it is this key fact that means that two weeks after all restrictions are lifted, it is now safe to say with a fair degree of confidence that our summer is not going to be interrupted by any fresh restrictions.
We may get a rise in today’s data, as often happens after a weekend, and the end of quarantine rules in two weeks is likely to drive cases up as well. But what really scared government scientists last month, as throughout the pandemic, is the terrible power of the exponential function.
In the days leading up to July 19 cases had reached 50,000 a day and were doubling every two weeks. It was all too plausible, therefore, that there would be 200,000 a day by mid-August — a level that would put the NHS back to January levels of pressure.
The risk of doubling numbers of this size meant that in mid-July the government’s SPI-M modelling committee was talking about the need to be ready with “stringent measures” quickly if cases were still rising by now.
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Exactly why exponential growth ceased at about the time scientists were writing this remains unclear, but the consequences are not. Cases are now about a fifth of the levels that ministers and scientists thought inevitable at about this point.
Understandably then, ministers talk about the data being “very, very promising” and are willing to make changes that had previously been put on hold, such as desensitising the NHS contact tracing app.
With hospital admissions now clearly falling in England, at 593 yesterday compared with 836 six days ago, the number of beds occupied by Covid patients is stable at about 5,000, less than a sixth of January levels. The NHS is going to find it tough to recover from the pandemic but concerns that it will be overwhelmed by Covid can probably be allayed.
At least until the autumn. Right now schools are out, millions are on holiday, the weather is warm and offices are still deserted. As life finally returns to normal patterns in the autumn, there is one more big test to come. SPI-M talks about September and October as a “particularly risky point” in the pandemic and, given the unpredictability of recent weeks, it would be foolish to rule out a nasty surprise yet to come.
But if the country can get through the new term without kick-starting another prolonged spell of exponential growth, the threat of lockdowns should finally be behind us.