| Body | On the 6+7/03/21 Rangers fans were heavily criticised from all corners for disregarding lockdown restrictions to celebrate winning the league for the first time in 10 years. It was widely predicted that these gatherings would cause covid figures to sky rocket. There may have been the odd contrarian but the general tone of the sub was overwhelming behind this hypothesis.
I made a mental note at the time to look into this as time passed and see if these predictions did in fact play out. They appear not to have done, in fact very much the opposite appears to be true.
04/03/21 Thursday before weekends fixtures.
500 new cases
24 deaths
68 in ICU
726 in hospital.
18/03/21 2 weeks later
624 new cases
7 deaths
38 in intensive care
405 in hospital
31/03/21 most up to date figures.
542 cases
6 deaths
21 in intensive care
237 in hospital.
Obviously figures fluctuate from day to day however the trend for deaths, ICU admissions and people in hospital are massively on the decline with a small increase in case numbers. I believe that school children are now being routinely tested, so this would be consistent with more cases along side far less deaths or hospitalisations.
While far from being a statistician or infectious disease except these figures suggest to me that the actions of the Rangers fans had NO noticeable detrimental effect on public health. At the time the general feeling was that the supporters actions were dangerous and that there would be serious consequences.
My question is, with hindsight and access to the figures after the fact. Have some people changed their mind regarding the need for continuing restrictions on association? The fear raised over these gatherings has clearly been a massive over reaction. The proposed consequences have simply never appeared. |
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