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There have been questions from journalists regarding the reporting of COVID-19 death rates.
Prof Colin Baigent FMedSci, Director of the MRC Population Health Research Unit, and Professor of Epidemiology, Clinical Trial Service Unit & Epidemiological Studies Unit, University of Oxford, said:
“A very important fact about COVID-19 is that in epidemic conditions the numbers of cases will increase exponentially daily. If, as in recent days in some countries under lockdown, there is a small fall in the number of new cases, then in reality this is a BIG fall as compared to what would be expected – and it needs to be reported as that. In fact, even a small rise may be good news if it less than exponential. It is easier to see this if the case numbers are presented logarithmically, as in the FT’s briefing at https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest. Lockdowns are working.”
All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink: https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19/
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