Visualising regional disparities in the risk of COVID-19 at different phases of lockdown in England

Abstract

Since late January 2020 when the first coronavirus case reached England, United Kingdom, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread rapidly and widely across all local authorities (LAs) in England. In this featured graphic, we visualise how COVID-19 severity changes nationally and locally from 30 January to 23 November 2020. The geo-visualisation shows that there have been large regional disparities in the severity of the outbreak, and the epicentres have shifted from Greater London, Leicester, to the North of England and remained in the North during pre-lockdown, post-lockdown, easing lockdown and second national lockdown phases. We further find that the increase in the testing capacity may partially explain the sharp increase in the confirmed cases during the second wave of the pandemic. However, the disparities in the severity of COVID-19 (i.e., confirmed cases and deaths) among LAs in England become more significant over time. It further sheds light on the necessity of establishing decisive and timely responses to cope with local pandemic situations.