100 days of lockdown: Significant numbers as Thurrock Nub News looks ahead to Super Saturday and the loosening of Covid-19 chains.

_________________________________

THE coronavirus pandemic has left a devastating impact on health, wealth, work and happiness after landing on UK shores.

The virus has touched – and claimed – lives without fear or favour. In Thurrock the latest figures (to June 19) report 139 deaths in the borough. 386 people in Thurrock have officially been recorded as having contracted the virus. The likelihood is, both figures are understated.

Living through the virus has seen a chapter of grim milestones passed.

July 1 sees another chalked up in the UK – 100 days since the introduction of lockdown which led to sparse high streets and planes, usually sending millions to much-needed holidays near and far, forced to sit on the tarmac.

But this coming Super Saturday – which sees a real loosening of Government restrictions – is being seen as a silver lining for the public and business world alike. While not every business is reopening - (some by choice) things will take a step back towards 'normality' as many pubs and restaurants will open their doors.

After 100 days in lockdown, Nub News (which has provided a constant stream of local stories - many of them upbeat, but some sad) looks at some of the numbers that have shaped the experience – for good as well as bad.

- When the UK's lockdown was announced on March 23, the cumulative number of deaths involving Covid-19 that had occurred in the nation up to that date was 1,000. There had been 950 in England and Wales, 43 in Scotland and seven in Northern Ireland (based on figures for death registrations).

- The death toll, based on registered deaths, passed 10,000 on Day 13 of the lockdown (April 5), 20,000 on Day 21 (April 13), 30,000 on Day 29 (April 21), 40,000 on Day 40 (May 2) and 50,000 on Day 62 (May 24).

- The Department of Health and Social Care said 43,575 people had died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Sunday June 28, up by 25 from 43,550 the day before.

The Government figures did not include all registered deaths involving Covid-19 across the UK, which – as of June 30 – totalled just under 55,000.

- Spare a thought for Leicester, as yesterday it became the first to feel the effects of local lockdown imposed by Health Secretary Matt Hancock after a spike in infections saw three times more cases than the city with the next highest total..

Its seven-day infection rate was 135 cases per 100,000 with nearly 1,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the past fortnight.

- Britain's economy is set to plunge by 10.2 per cent in 2020 and global activity will take a hit of nearly £10 trillion (£9.6 trillion) from the coronavirus pandemic by the end of 2021, the International Monetary Fund has warned.

In an update to its already grim set of forecasts in April, the IMF said it now expects the global economy to contract by 4.9 per cent in 2020 compared with the three per cent it predicted two months ago.

The FTSE 100 – the index of the largest UK companies – opened the year at 7,542.44 on January 2 and closed on June 30 at 6,169.74, a drop of 18.2 per cent in six months. It dipped under the 5,000-point barrier on March 23, the day when Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a UK-wide partial lockdown.

- Some economists have said the crisis could see levels of unemployment return to the three million-plus witnessed in the 1980s.

- And for those who have felt the financial force of stepping outside the boundaries of emergency laws, there is mounting pressure on police chiefs to review all lockdown fines.

More than 40 MPs and peers have joined calls from 13 human rights groups, lawyers and campaigners for the National Police Chiefs' Council to look again at penalties handed out to those apparently flouting the rules.

Former Conservative cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell, ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and acting Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey as well as Baroness Shami Chakrabarti are among those to put their name to the letter alongside groups including Amnesty International UK and Liberty.

A total of 18,439 fixed penalty notices (FPNs) including 15,856 in England and 2,583 in Wales were recorded by forces between March 27 and June 22, according to provisional NPCC data.

North Yorkshire Police has issued the most fines so far (1,122), followed by the Metropolitan Police (1,072) and Devon and Cornwall (978) compared to just 42 in Staffordshire and 58 in Warwickshire.

At the last count Essex Police had issued 227 fines.

But it's not all been doom and gloom . . .

- The world of work has seen dramatic changes in the past 100 days, many of which will become permanent, ending decades of office life.

Millions of people have switched from commuting to offices to working from home, or have agreed flexible arrangements, and even part-time shifts.

Huge numbers of workers have enjoyed the benefits of swapping an office desk for their front room or garden shed, giving an immediate boost to their work-life balance.

Surveys throughout the past three months have shown the popularity of flexible, home-working, especially among parents, a trend experts believe is now embedded in the UK's working culture.

The changes could help tackle the UK's long-hours culture, reduce sickness absence and improve productivity – problems which have dogged industry for decades.

A new survey of 1,500 working parents by childcare provider Bright Horizons showed that half are set to demand flexible work in the future, with only around one in eight wanting to go back to pre-pandemic working.

- The encouragement to exercise every day as a 'break out' from virtual house arrest has been a huge plus after number of experts and studies have hinted that obesity can have a detrimental effect on your chances of fighting off the virus

In addition to taking advice from TV fitness coach Joe Wicks, there has been a huge surge in the number of aspiring runners.

Hundreds of thousands of people have downloaded the Couch to 5K app during lockdown.

The Public Health England app is designed for beginners and encourages them to incrementally increase the amount they run each week.

More than 858,000 people downloaded the app between March and the end of June – a 92 per cent increase from the same period in 2019 when the app was downloaded 448,000 times.

The NHS-backed app provides guided commentary from a virtual coach who helps people increase the amount they run week by week.

- And finally the world is a better place as the lockdown seems to have also had an impact on the level of carbon dioxide decline.

"Reduction in road vehicle activity has taken us back to levels similar to the 1950s," said Dr David Carslaw, a reader in urban air pollution at the University of York.

He added: "In terms of emissions ... we've probably gone back to the early 1900s."