Balham has had one of the highest Covid infection rates in London recently – but locals don’t seem to care. The area’s infection rate in the week leading up to July 14 was 707.8 per 100,000 of the population – according to government figures. But by and large, families in the Wandsworth town feel safe, and have blamed the infection rate spike on overpopulation and young people socialising in the neighbourhood. Andrew Barbu, a 23-year-old local of Balham has put down a spike in coronavirus infection rates in Balham to the area being overpopulated, but the 23-year-old said he “didn’t care about Covid from the beginning to the end” of the pandemic.