Letter: Covid Stats Comparisons Are Not ‘Too Difficult’

Published on: 13 May, 2020
Updated on: 13 May, 2020

From Keith Chesterton

former Labour councillor

The government was keen on showing comparisons with France Spain and Italy when we were lower. These have stopped now ours are higher! “Because comparisons are too difficult”

This is rubbish.

Certainly, we can get more accurate comparisons as time goes by, but we know enough now to know that, sadly for us, we are doing much worse.

And why can’t the government be honest about tests? They did well (after delaying far too long) in getting tests capacity up from 10,000 a day to 80,000. But instead of claiming credit, they fiddled the figures and pretended they’d reached 100,000 by including those “in the post”.

And why won’t the government give us best estimates for R0 (the virus reproduction figure) for the UK and regions?

Germany does it to 2 decimal places.

Why won’t the UK Government trust us with the information?

I write this as a mathematician and statistician.

Responses to Letter: Covid Stats Comparisons Are Not ‘Too Difficult’

John Perkins Reply

May 13, 2020 at 10:24 pm

I agree the government is being unnecessarily secretive and I would wish it otherwise.

But I disagree that best estimations for R0 are worth anything. It’s a guess, as is every number extrapolated from it, including the infection rate.
Peta Malthouse Reply

May 14, 2020 at 3:23 pm

Sadly we are not being supplied with anything like the information we are entitled to see. Until we do, trust in our government is lost. Simple messaging is essential. I am an intelligent voter but I am confused.