Deaths at Home, Supermarket Infections and the Cobra Effect
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Hello and welcome to More or Less. We're the programme that tries to make your world add up, without taking anything from the multiplying difficulties we face in these divided times. I'm Tim Harford. This week, are people more likely to die at home rather than in hospital these days? And is that good news or bad news? David Spiegelhalter is on the case. The government has a cunning plan to encourage people to self-isolate. Is there a risk that it's a bit too cunning? Cobras and feral hogs may be involved. The UK is in lockdown, but tens of thousands of people a day are still testing positive for coronavirus. Where are they catching it? And grim data on drug deaths in Scotland have been called into question on social media.
We ferret out the truth. But first, Covid case numbers are still falling. The number of patients being admitted to hospitals also seems to have started slowly falling. But deaths remain high. On the 20th of January, headlines said that the UK had reported 1,820 deaths. We've mentioned many times on More or Less that reported deaths are not the same as deaths which have taken place that day. But that didn't stop many people claiming that 1,820 people had died that day. For example, Professor Alice Roberts at the University of Birmingham tweeted that 1,820 people died today and that we should all be angry. And nearly 10,000 people were angry. Angry enough to retweet anyway. But as I keep trying to tell people, angry retweets don't necessarily help us think more clearly about the world.
And while the death toll is appallingly high, it's not as high as the headlines and the tweets claim. David Spiegelhalter is the chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at Cambridge University.
I find these headlines very distressing. I mean, we have been speaking since the start of the pandemic in March about the dangers of reporting the number of deaths or even the number of cases because of the reporting delays. And so these numbers depend so much on the day of the week, for example. Wednesday is almost always a high day, And last Wednesday was reported 1,820 deaths, which got a lot of headlines. Now, so far we know that actually at least 1,028 people died on that day, as more cases are reported. It may go up to about 1,100, but nowhere near 1,820. And so, you know, all these headlines I feel were deeply, deeply misleading.
But I realise that the statistical pedant in me wants people to be precise. And if Wednesday was when the deaths were reported, that is not necessarily when the deaths occurred. But overall, is there any reason to believe that deaths are being systematically misstated or just that the media is being a bit vague when it should be precise?
In the end, the total numbers will match up. It's just that the headline figures on particular days receive such attention. And days on which far fewer deaths are reported, for example, yesterday it was 600 or so, that doesn't get any coverage at all. And so I do feel that these headlines are misleading. The numbers are high enough and bad enough anyway without making inappropriate comparisons.
So what is the situation now compared with the first wave? It seems to be even worse than the first wave. In terms of deaths, is that the case?
Not in terms of the peak. The problem is that the number that's reported and is on the main dashboard is using this criterion of a death of somebody who once tested positive. and then died within 28 days of their positive test. Back in April, in the first wave, there wasn't anything like the same amount of testing that was done and so there's a systematic undercount in the actual number of deaths. So, for example, the peak in the first wave, according to the dashboard, is 1,073 who died on the 8th of April. But in fact, if we look at ONS data about who actually died on that day and then was registered as a death with COVID, it's 1,456. You know, much, much higher. And our current daily death rate is not approaching that.
I don't believe we'll get near that figure.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–4:38
2
How were confusing Covid death headlines misleading about daily totals?
4:38–11:56
3
Why does David Spiegelhalter argue reported death dates differ from actual death dates?
11:56–21:53
4
Are current Covid death rates worse than the first wave when accounting for testing differences?
21:53–28:19
5
Is there evidence people are dying at home instead of hospitals during the pandemic?
28:19–28:22