UK Edition
Revealed: The three UK sporting events that may have led to a coronavirus death spike
The Cheltenham Festival, Liverpool's tie with Atletico Madrid and the Manchester derby all resulted in more coronavirus cases and deaths
Mass gatherings held in the run-up to Britain’s coronavirus peak may have led to additional deaths in the local areas, a new analysis suggests.
Events including the Cheltenham Festival, the Liverpool vs Atletico Madrid Champions League football match and the Manchester derby all resulted in an apparent spike in deaths at local hospital trusts compared with others further afield.
All three events, each attended by tens of thousands of people, many from overseas, were held between March 8 and 13 - after the virus arrived in Britain but ahead of the government lockdown.
Analysis by Edge Health,a leading supplier of analysis to the NHS, shows that each fixture is linked to between 2.5 and 3.5 additional deaths per day at local hospitals 20 to 35 days later, compared with similar hospital trusts which were used as a control.
The analysis adjusted for bed numbers to account for differences in the size of the local hospital trusts and their comparators.
“We need to understand more about how and when the virus is transmitted so that we can reduce and mitigate the risk of a second wave,” said George Batchelor, a co-founder of Edge Health. “This analysis suggests there is a correlation between mass gatherings and infection and therefore mortality which needs to be investigated further.
“The close proximity of people and likelihood of someone carrying the disease make transmission far more likely to happen”.
There is controversy over the Government’s decision to allow these and other mass gatherings to have taken place ahead of Britain’s lockdown.
At the time, ministers maintained the scientific evidence did not point to mass gatherings being a major factor in the spread of the virus. They feared that if such events were cancelled, people might have gathered in pubs and bars to watch on television instead - something that would have posed a greater risk.
Nevertheless, data from Imperial College London presented in a report on lockdown by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change suggests that “public events” account for 60 per cent of a viral reproduction number of one (R1) - the level at which the virus starts to spread again. The following chart shows the projected result of different types of mass gatherings:
Opening schools, by contrast, would account for just 30 per cent of R1, according to the Imperial data, which is likely to be updated later this week as part of the planning for the Government’s exit strategy.
Liverpool City Council announced last week it was launching an inquiry to ascertain whether there is a direct link between the staging of the Atletico Madrid match at Anfield and the spike in confirmed coronavirus cases in the region.
The Champions League match was played on March 11, two days before football in England was suspended indefinitely due to the pandemic.
Some 3,000 Atletico supporters are thought to have travelled from Madrid to Liverpool to watch the game. This is despite Covid-19 being rife in Spain at the time and all gatherings of over 1,000 people being banned in Madrid itself.
Liverpool had only six confirmed coronavirus cases ahead of the match but has since recorded more than 250 deaths in local NHS hospitals from the virus.
Public health officials have also called for an investigation into the decision allow the Cheltenham Festival to go ahead in early March.
Mortality figures compiled by the Health Service Journal show that Gloucestershire hospitals NHS trust, which covers Cheltenham, has recorded 125 deaths, roughly double that in two nearby trusts at Bristol (58 each), and those covering Swindon (67) and Bath (46).
Officials at Gloucestershire council say there were “many factors” that could have influenced the death totals.
The Edge Health analysis compared Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust with University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust as a control and found excess deaths running at over three per day 30 days after the racing event.
Mass events linked to the spread of the coronavirus are not only a British phenomenon. The packed apres-ski bars of European ski resorts are linked to thousands of cases across Europe and religious gatherings have been blamed for significant outbreaks in Asia.
A football match played in Italy in February has been described as a "biological bomb".
More than 44,000 fans, including around a third of the population of the province of Bergamo in the Lombardy region of Northern Italy, attended the game at the San Siro stadium in Milan on 19 February between Atalanta and Valencia.
It came just two days before the first case of locally transmitted COVID-19 was confirmed in the country and has been dubbed "Game Zero" by local media.
A Government spokesperson said: "It is our absolute priority to protect people's health and our advice on coronavirus is the result of direct, continuous consultation with medical experts.
"These events took place within clear government guidance at the time."
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