Fixing test and trace is the only way to avoid economic catastrophe

Linda J. Dodson

You wouldn’t bet against full closures following in the autumn if the Government goes for a “circuit breaker”. It all stems from the fact that if you can’t see the disease, particularly at a local level, then you can’t fight it. 

The urgency of getting testing going again is underlined by new research from the University of Nottingham and the Chicago Booth School of Business into the economic impact of local lockdowns.

Academics John Gathergood and Benedict Guttman-Kenney examined credit card spending figures provided by data firm Fable for areas subject to local restrictions such as Leicester and Manchester, and compared them with “control” cities such as Coventry and Liverpool.

The data covers credit card spending in stores, so spending in somewhere like Greggs would register, but online purchases through Amazon would not.

Take the Leicester example. Compared to the imposition of a national lockdown in March, which caused a 40pc slump in credit card spending, the local impositions have had much less of an effect while effectively quashing the virus. 

According to the Fable data, based on 180,000 transactions, spending in Leicester was already 31pc down compared to its pre-virus level, at around £750,000 a day.

But while the lockdown cut Covid-19 cases from 20 per 100,000 to fewer than five per 100,000 inhabitants, it did so without any further significant decline in credit card spending compared to Coventry.

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