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False negatives, testing capacity and pheasants

False negatives, testing capacity and pheasants

FromMore or Less: Behind the Stats


False negatives, testing capacity and pheasants

FromMore or Less: Behind the Stats

ratings:
Length:
28 minutes
Released:
Jun 3, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

As lockdowns begin to lift the government is relying on testing and contact tracing programmes to prevent a second wave of Covid-19 infections. But how accurate are the swab tests used to diagnose the disease?

The UK Statistics Authority has criticised the government for the way it reports testing figures, saying it’s not surprising that these numbers “are so widely criticised and often mistrusted.” We take a look at how the government achieved its target of developing a daily testing capacity of 200,000 by the end of May.

Can we really have only 60 harvests left in the world? Plus, the very pleasant Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall has a pleasant pheasant question for us.
Released:
Jun 3, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

Tim Harford and the More or Less team try to make sense of the statistics which surround us. From BBC Radio 4