What frustrates me about the public presentation of the data is, as you see from the media posts that Kaz reproduces, numbers are always being phrased in the most negative way.
Yes, if it calls for it you need to be honest and do that. But citing what were actually pretty good Sunday death data as if they are bad because they are the highest since May is needless. Every day that rises will be. Its pretty obvious.
So - factually true - yes - in so far as it goes. But what it misses entirely is the context of the week to week rise - which in the current pandemic is way more significant than being the highest number since the first wave - which is a bit like saying it is colder today than it was in May. True, but not the main thing you need to know about the weather right now.
I cite this kind of data too but not without background and any mitigation.
The numbers in hospital deaths yesterday were week to week in the nations Scotland 3 down to 0, Wales 19 down to 16. N Ireland 7 up to 9 and England 122 up to 133.
Two of the four nations fell week to week and the other 2 rose by an amount that is hard to characterise as worrying.
And the overall numbers in context were of a slowing of the increase.
Balanced reporting should not be focusing on doom and gloom to the exclusion of context.
Yes it is important to be real and stress when numbers are bad and get across that this is no cakewalk and things are serious but if you are informing the public that needs to be tempered with honesty as and when things look brighter from a wider context than just more people died today than yesterday.
The whole story is not told by simple mathematics.
