Coronavirus Pandemic in London

The UK is banning people from leaving their homes apart from for a few “very limited” reasons. Five and a half weeks since the first confirmed case of Covid-19 in London, the number of cases in the capital was approaching 2,500 on Monday and deaths there made up a third of the UK total. “The line for London going up in that exponential way is an indication that the epidemic is out of control,” says Prof Eric Brunner of University College London.

“It is still not clear what the reasons are for that,” he says. “Perhaps that is so they can avoid a formal state of emergency and so they don’t alienate the population. But the behaviour of a population has to change very, very fast to prevent this epidemic becoming a disaster.”