Cycling UK Forum

I came here to post a link to the article in case nobody else had.

Noting that the September time line was the same as my longer plan to JOGLE.

I abandoned the idea because although it was legal at the time I didn't trust the authorities not to pull the shutters down at a moment's notice and also I was very wary of the hotel/B&B industry and their concept of a "deep clean" having seen some examples in holiday cottages in kinder times where the clean had been at the best "shallow".

My main takeaways were that the midges were still bad in September when I had expected to be more or less over, and that they reportedly spent a lot of time wringing out their socks.
Glad I invested in some waterproof socks even though all my riding has been local.

Maybe holidays are guilty, people caught it away, it incubates for a few days, then breaks out back home

pwa wrote:In Wales the areas with the lowest population density, which were also areas favoured by tourists in July and August, have been the areas with the lowest incidence of Covid, and a much lower Covid death rate per 100 000 than in the densely populated areas. The summer surge of tourists did not provoke a spike in cases. Cases have risen in those areas recently, though still far below the rates in the built-up areas, but the increase can hardly be blamed on tourists at this time of year. As in other places, it is mostly local people mixing a bit too freely in their homes.

I don't know how the counting was done in Wales, but in England, hospitalisations and deaths are reported at the hospital where they occur, but positive tests are reported at the home address of the infected person, which means that we couldn't easily see the full effect of the summer surge of tourists - and the effect of university residence outbreaks was slow to be visible because some at first were still registered at their parents' address. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/ ... 68656.html

Bars, restaurants and cafes were blamed as the largest avoidable infection source in England a month or so ago - but the key word there was avoidable, with work and education regarded as unavoidable and omitted from the "league table" thanks to Boris's promises.

mjr wrote:

pwa wrote:In Wales the areas with the lowest population density, which were also areas favoured by tourists in July and August, have been the areas with the lowest incidence of Covid, and a much lower Covid death rate per 100 000 than in the densely populated areas. The summer surge of tourists did not provoke a spike in cases. Cases have risen in those areas recently, though still far below the rates in the built-up areas, but the increase can hardly be blamed on tourists at this time of year. As in other places, it is mostly local people mixing a bit too freely in their homes.

I don't know how the counting was done in Wales, but in England, hospitalisations and deaths are reported at the hospital where they occur, but positive tests are reported at the home address of the infected person, which means that we couldn't easily see the full effect of the summer surge of tourists - and the effect of university residence outbreaks was slow to be visible because some at first were still registered at their parents' address. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/ ... 68656.html

Bars, restaurants and cafes were blamed as the largest avoidable infection source in England a month or so ago - but the key word there was avoidable, with work and education regarded as unavoidable and omitted from the "league table" thanks to Boris's promises.

The odd area of Wales statistically is Powys, where the death count is probably low but is made artificially lower by having the deaths happen at the nearest hospitals which happen to be just over the border in England. The Welsh government, quite sensibly, pays for treatment of Welsh residents in English hospitals where it makes sense. But places like Barmouth got very busy with tourists in July and August without producing a significant spike in cases amongst local people, and without filling the hospital in Aberystwyth. Cases remained low in September. When cases did start to rise significantly it was mainly in non-tourist towns like Caerphilly and the tracing info tended to pin it down to people mixing in their homes.

FWIW, the "official Sustrans guide to the iconic ride" opines: "All-terrain bikes, touring bikes and hybrid bikes will manage just fine. We have tested the route using a road bike equipped with Continental GatorSkin 28mm tyres and completed all stages puncture-free."