I think you can safely assume that testing is never uniform across countries but those with open democracies, such as in northern mainland Europe, will be more likely to be producing similar results using broadly comparable methods. Countries with ''populist'' governments or those with an unfree or unrepresentative press will be more likely to produce underestimates, IMO.
Lateral flow tests are pretty much early-warning tests, the infection figures should be the more accurate PCR tests. As for 3 million infected over 3 months, it's worth bearing in mind that the Zoe app gives current (as opposed to new) cases at over one million.
I can believe the 3 million figure, don't forget that the schools have gone back, both my kids have Covid ripping through the school - just yesterday my sons whole class were sent home for remote learning because 13 kids out of 31 have tested positive at almost the same time. The emails form my daughters school (secondary) at the start of term listed which class was affected and also the buses that the children were on with requests for PCR tests, day by day the lists got longer, the last email we received basically stated that Covid was everywhere and they would have to list every class and bus so they were stopping the emails. My daughter has done 7 PCR tests almost 1 a week since term started, going by the letters it should have been pretty much every day in the last month.
Yes, I can believe the school situation. Based on observing my OAP associates, I have long thought that school children to grand parents (doing school run/ babysitting) was a major transmission route.
On the higher population density, it's worth saying that I watched the spread of the delta variant work its way London-wards from north Kent (Swale, that's around the Isle of Sheppey). That's not an area recognised for high population density but that's where it prospered and spread from. The arrival of delta as the prevalent strain in London did not make for worse figures than it did for the rest of the country. And, curiously, the only places where infection rates show as below 200 in 100,000 on this current BBC link to government data https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274 - are 9 inner London boroughs, plus Shetland and the outer Hebrides. Sparsity of population off mainland Scotland, sure, but definitely not in inner London.
Curious indeed. Not what would be expected, from the perceived wisdom. IMHO. Which, just makes me think there are significant gaps in our knowledge.
For reasons which escape me, the edit function appears to have disappeared, so this is just to add the Orkneys to the low infection rate areas. Apologies to Orcadians for leaving them out.
Is there any evidence that any of the many, many countries, which are performing better than UK, have higher mask wearing figures? In particular, any of our European or Scandinavian cousins?
