The pubs open on Saturday in England, allowing people to mix in confined spaces and potentially transmit COVID-19.
In Friday’s Number 10 briefing, the Chief Medical Officer said
“The biggest risks are when lots of people from completely different households are brought together in close proximity indoors. And whether that’s in a pub or a cricket pavilion that is a high risk activity. And that’s the reason why the really quite onerous social distancing guidelines that are going to cause a significant change to pubs and cause difficulties for many publicans, and we all recognise that, are so essential. There is no doubt these are environments whose principle job it is to bring people together. That’s a great thing to do socially, but it’s also a great thing from the virus’s point of view. And therefore we do have to have a really clear and really disciplined approach to trying to maintain social distancing whilst also enjoying pubs, and this would be true in any other environment”
Which regions of the country are particularly risky? Leicester for a start, where drinking in pubs is banned. Kirklees, Bradford, Blackburn, Rochdale, Rotherham, and Oldham have the next highest cases.
But there are vast swathes of the country that exceed the US Centers for Disease Control threshold for re-opening (10 cases per 100,000 people in a two-week period). While not equivalent, I have used 5 cases per 100,000 people in one week as a cut-off.
I have analyzed the latest Public Health England data to work out which parts of the country exceed these thresholds and plotted them on the map below.
This of course does not mean that other parts of the country are risk-free.
This article was updated on 4 July with the latest data for PHE specimen date for the week to 3 July 2020 inclusive.