May 21, 2021 Update: A Scottish government agency breached freedom of information rules by refusing to reveal how many people had died of Covid in each of the country's care homes. Full BBC report HERE See also Scottish Information Commission report: Number of Deaths in Care Homes HERE In this pandemic there has been an unprecedented obsession with “the data”. As the … [Read more...] about Statistical amnesia
statistics
No more political games
So, the Statistics Regulator (UKSA) has criticised Nicola Sturgeon for stating that prevalence of COVID-19 in England is five times higher than in Scotland. The criticism was that using unpublished data without attribution lacked transparency and the comparisons made were not comparing like with like. In normal times there would be few impartial analysts who would rush to the … [Read more...] about No more political games
Small numbers, big uncertainty: hard decisions
After many thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of cases it has been a relief to see daily new cases of COVID and weekly death counts drop to double or even single figures. But as we try and find a balance between lockdown and our normal lives, we are faced with a new problem: if you attempt to perform analysis on counts of less than 10 then you are likely committing a … [Read more...] about Small numbers, big uncertainty: hard decisions
The Ministry of Truth
Are UK Government Covid-19 statistics subject to manipulation? If so, whose hand is on the data? Senior medical statistician James Urquhart examines a mystery and possible malfeasance. Why is the UK nation with the worst track record relaxing restrictions fastest?Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' … [Read more...] about The Ministry of Truth
The need for cultural change
A Scottish Statistical Agency wholly independent of the government of the day and run by an independent Chief Statistician is a pre-requisite for the cultural change Scotland needs to drive forward economic progress in the broadest sense, argues Richard Marsh in the second part of his paper. A breadth of microdata is available and has been (to date) an underused resource. A … [Read more...] about The need for cultural change