AT THE START of March, the UK, and the world, was a very different place to what it is now.

On March 1, there were 34 Italian fatalities from coronavirus, two deaths in America and just 23 cases of the virus in the UK. And on Tuesday, the final day of the month, those figures rose to 12,428 deaths in Italy, more than 3,000 deaths in the USA and there now 25,150 positive tests in the UK.

The first day of the month saw the government set out its four-step plan to control the Covid-19 outbreak, whilst the last saw the country going into its second week of partial lockdown.

Freedom of movement has been curbed, with billions of people across the world told to stay at home.

In the UK, there are now four reasons you can leave the house: to buy groceries, as little as possible; one form of exercise a day, but near your home; for medical needs or to care for vulnerable people; or to go to work if you can’t do so at home.

This is all to “stop the spread”, and “flatten the curve” - so that the amount of people going to intensive care will not exceed the NHS capacity.

Throughout most of the outbreak, Hampshire has led the way in the number of cases. In the last few days, the number of cases in Birmingham has surged, pulling it clear, but when compared to neighbouring local authorities, the Hampshire County Council area - which covers Basingstoke, Winchester, Andover, Farnborough, Fareham and the New Forest - Hampshire is still much higher. This is clear when you map out all confirmed cases - the darker blues in the map are fewer numbers and the darker reds higher.

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This may be because of the higher than average population in Hampshire. The most recent population data held by the Office for National Statistics, in mid-2018, show the population of Hampshire to be almost 1.4 million people.

A spokesperson for Public Health England, who publish daily figures broken down by council, concurred this view: “The dashboard shows the numbers of cases per upper tier local authority, rather than the rate of cases per size of the population. Hampshire has one of the highest populations in the South East, so we would expect the figure to be higher as a result of this.”

However, Basingstoke and parts of Hampshire has, anecdotally, a much higher number of commuters to London, which is the worst-affected region in the country with almost 30 per cent of all the total cases in the UK. Oksana Pyzik, a Global Engagement Lead at University College London’s School of Pharmacy, said of the Tube: “As we know, the social distancing recommendation is about two meters, and none of us can get two meters away from each other even on a good day.

“The worry is if someone sneezes, or coughs, and now there is even suspicion that this virus can survive airborne.

“So really, it’s not just the distance. But also the humidity. Between 47 to 79 percent tends to be ideal thriving conditions at least under laboratory conditions for this.”

The county also has a much higher amount of cases per head than its near-neighbours of Surrey (387) and West Sussex (146), the only adjoined to Hampshire and in triple digits (as of March 31).

Another theory of how Hampshire is so much higher is that there is more testing going on there. Whilst testing is not broken down by area by Public Health England, Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust are leading the way in testing, with a team there being the first in the country to develop an in-house test for Covid-19, whilst they hit a breakthrough last weekend when they managed to reduce waiting times to just five minutes for their tests.

Veronica Fowler, who volunteers with the team at Basingstoke hospital developing these tests, said: “The doctors are coming down regularly to get the results of priority patients and they all said it’s a game changer for the NHS.

“The situation is horrifying so we need as much help as possible and this is a tool to help.”

Shedding light on the testing process, Veronica added: “A patient has to be swabbed and samples have to be taken to the lab and sometimes they aren’t in the same hospital. Winchester has to ship samples to Basingstoke which adds a couple of days.”

“Having rapid diagnostic tests - the quicker you get the results the quicker you can isolate. If the delay is three days and someone has been in the community, it might only be in their own household, that’s three days that they are in the community whereas if you can say in two hours they will have the results they won’t be spreading it for three days.”