Back again with that argument, it isn't true, not for here, not for London as a whole. The testing has been very much in the face and being thrust upon people. Anyway my area and the whole of South Croydon is affluent so not being able to afford doesn't come into it.
In any case the fact that gives the lie to your argument is the low death rate, currently zero in my area and far lower in London than in the worst suffering areas of the north where vaccination rates are near 90%. Compare that to here where under two thirds have the first jab and just over half have the two jabs, because they dont want them. That's bad of course, they should have them for their limited benefits, but it's obviously not as crucial as is being promoted.
Like Danidl you look for reasons to desperately cling to the theory the medical "experts" promote while trying to avoid the facts on the ground. At least Spiegelhalter has changed his tune twice now, being a statistician looking at facts and not a medic has probably helped him with that.
There are good reasons why our rates are so low:
Being hit so hard at the beginning of the pandemic gave us self immunity which led to much lower later rates in 2020, as the rest of the country slowly climbed inexorably upwards and overtook us.
We repeated that in January with the second wave hitting us hard at the outset, our "self booster" with the same better outcome since, regardless of the vaccines which we didn't receive until months later.
The later an area is affected, the greater the likelyhood of one's first infection being a stronger strain, so it's effects worse.
In my South Croydon area there are structural reasons why our mixing is limited to our own less affected population, such as not sharing public transport with more Covid affected areas.
And again in my area, the geography of the North Downs gives us a natural protection with our prevailing winds from the southern countryside, channeled by the contours. Turning my head to the left I look out of the window at a tree line which is the Surrey border. From there its country all the way across the North Downs, the Weald and the South Downs to the Channel. But to the north is the very steep rising escarpment of the last rise of the Downs, so northerly winds from higher density urban London pass over us at altitude prior to dispersal.
Note, none of this is down to any skill, it's all just our good luck, but that doesn't mean it hasn't got lessons to be learned that are applicable elsewhere. Some are already learnt, though not practiced enough, that outdoors is safer than indoors, country air safer than town air.
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