Quote of the day 10th September 2023

“Two years ago, progressives critical of the government’s handling of the pandemic took to calling the UK “Plague Island”, citing Britain’s reported Covid death rates, which were among the highest in the developed world. 

But with the benefit of hindsight, we know that Britain was simply better at counting its deaths than most countries. 

Once the dust had settled, the UK was in the middle of the pack for pandemic mortality. It was not simply that two years ago Britain was faring badly and then things improved: Britain had always been faring better than the initial data suggested.”

This is one of quite a few really important take-outs from a truly excellent must-read article called "The danger of building strong narratives on weak data" by John Burn-Murdoch in the FT.

You can read the full article by clicking on the link below and I very strongly recommend it.

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