Originally published on Substack on 21 November 2023 As the Covid Inquiry continues, we have heard evidence from the former Chief Scientific Adviser. He was questioned on his Almost-But-Not-Quite contemporaneous diary entries that are displayed as excerpts. But this raises questions about the role of science and scientists. Following the Science? The government was very …
Continue reading “Following the Science and Handling the Scientists”
This week at the Covid Public Inquiry included descriptions of misbehaviour in Number 10 and the flow of information to the Prime Minister. Originally published on Substack on 3 November 2023 This week’s evidence session at the Covid Public Inquiry continued its investigation into the UK decision-making and political governance, hearing from witnesses including civil servants in Number …
Continue reading “Organizational Misbehaviour and the Control of Information”
Letter in the Financial Times The failure of the government’s testing strategy (Report, September 22) is a lesson in confusing resources with capabilities. Commercial NHS test and trace has resources but not capabilities. NHS labs and local authority directors of public health supported by Public Health England have capabilities but not resources. In order to …
Continue reading “Media Roundup week ending 12 October 2020”
Sky News https://youtu.be/iN0kUXK_0Ts?t=28 BBC Radio Five Live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTMW4lUjAGA Quoted on Sky News , Daily Express, Yahoo! News, Guardian BBC Local Radio, Independent Radio (Bauer Media syndicates) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuurDpf3sp0 Background to Financial Times, Reuters, LBC, Guardian
Today’s analysis shows 22 cases per 100,000 in the over-80s population in England. To put this into context, the Government uses a rate of 20 cases per 100,000 in order to determine (with other factors) whether you should self isolate when you return from a country with this incidence of Covid-19. An interpretation would be: …
Continue reading “Latest Cases Heatmap Analysis: 22 cases per 100,000 over-80-year-olds”
Sky News including my cases heatmap analysis at 2:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyjc1Gh2puM Channel 5 News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30V8YuRqw5g Quoted in the British Medical Journal(BMJ 2020; 370 :m3678 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m3678 ) Quoted in The Observer / The Guardian … BBC Local Radio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QSa5YUuLZw And interviews on BBC Look North & BBC East Midlands Today; Background to BBC News, Reuters
ITV Good Morning Britain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5RNGBlHF7k&t=4s Interviewed on BBC Five Live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3PZhuEY7L0 Sky News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRIM44Dqs4I Analysis shown on ITV Peston Daily Mail (Mail Online) and Yahoo! News UK BBC Local Radio (BBC Radio Leicester, BBC Radio Oxford, BBC Radio Berkshire) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cYHyrHbOnE and background interviews for BBC, Bloomberg, Reuters.
School pupils have had a tough year. For those with examinations, such as A-levels, it has been even tougher. The Department for Education decreed that A-levels and GCSEs should not take place due to the COVID crisis. This meant that an alternative way of allocating grades to students needed to be found. To set the …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5MLUw1CMsw Leicester went into lockdown in early July, with the Statutory Instrument setting out these restrictions published on 3 July (The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Leicester) Regulations 2020) just before the loosening of restrictions elsewhere in the country. Public Health England has published an analysis of what is known about the Leiecester outbreak. Diagrams are …
Continue reading “Commentary on COVID-19 cases in Leicester”
The news that UK business secretary Alok Sharma has been tested for Covid-19 highlighted the issue of survivorship bias, that is the systematic overestimation of performance and underestimation of risk by ignoring non-survivors. In the early stages of the epidemic, the risk perception of politicians broadly matched that of the general population. However, if the …
