Maths Exploration
Investigating the relationship between UK
national lockdowns and daily COVID-19
cases, and modelling the pandemic under
different governmental proposals
Word count: [3622]
,Contents
1 Introduction & Rationale
2 Obtaining Growth and Decay Rates
3 Modelling Government Proposals
3.1 The Prime Minister’s Proposal
3.2 The Labour Party’s Proposal
4 Comparison and Evaluation of Models
5 Conclusion
6 Bibliography
7 Appendices
, 1 Introduction & Rationale
At the start of October 2020, there was pressure on the UK government to tackle
the rising number of coronavirus cases, and many proposals were discussed.
Leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, suggested a two-week ‘circuit-
breaker’ national lockdown, running over October half-term (beginning on
October 26th) [1]. His proposal followed that of the scientific advisory group Sage
which had put forward the same idea 3 weeks previously, to prevent a “very
large epidemic with catastrophic consequences” [2]. In contrast, the Prime
Minister decided against this, implementing some regional restrictions, before
later implementing a national lockdown from November 5th to December 2nd.
As the UK opened back up after the first national lockdown, a member of my
family contracted coronavirus and the risk of contracting the disease was made
soberingly apparent to me. Since then, I have watched the government’s policy
regarding the pandemic closely, and this inspired me to investigate the
effectiveness of different lockdown approaches.
The aim of this essay is to use the statistical analysis tool of exponential
regression to approximate the growth and decay rates of daily coronavirus cases
in and out of lockdown, to model simplifications of the Prime Minister’s and the
Labour Party’s proposals of coronavirus restrictions from mid-October until early
December and to compare their case numbers, respectively. Finally, building on
this, I will touch on the significance of when a lockdown is introduced, and how
this can impact the total number of cases contracted during a period of time.
1
Investigating the relationship between UK
national lockdowns and daily COVID-19
cases, and modelling the pandemic under
different governmental proposals
Word count: [3622]
,Contents
1 Introduction & Rationale
2 Obtaining Growth and Decay Rates
3 Modelling Government Proposals
3.1 The Prime Minister’s Proposal
3.2 The Labour Party’s Proposal
4 Comparison and Evaluation of Models
5 Conclusion
6 Bibliography
7 Appendices
, 1 Introduction & Rationale
At the start of October 2020, there was pressure on the UK government to tackle
the rising number of coronavirus cases, and many proposals were discussed.
Leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, suggested a two-week ‘circuit-
breaker’ national lockdown, running over October half-term (beginning on
October 26th) [1]. His proposal followed that of the scientific advisory group Sage
which had put forward the same idea 3 weeks previously, to prevent a “very
large epidemic with catastrophic consequences” [2]. In contrast, the Prime
Minister decided against this, implementing some regional restrictions, before
later implementing a national lockdown from November 5th to December 2nd.
As the UK opened back up after the first national lockdown, a member of my
family contracted coronavirus and the risk of contracting the disease was made
soberingly apparent to me. Since then, I have watched the government’s policy
regarding the pandemic closely, and this inspired me to investigate the
effectiveness of different lockdown approaches.
The aim of this essay is to use the statistical analysis tool of exponential
regression to approximate the growth and decay rates of daily coronavirus cases
in and out of lockdown, to model simplifications of the Prime Minister’s and the
Labour Party’s proposals of coronavirus restrictions from mid-October until early
December and to compare their case numbers, respectively. Finally, building on
this, I will touch on the significance of when a lockdown is introduced, and how
this can impact the total number of cases contracted during a period of time.
1
