Risk to young ‘staggeringly low’
The risk of coronavirus for the young is ‘‘staggeringly low’’, the UK’s leading statistician has said, as he condemned the Government’s ‘‘embarrassing’’ handling of Covid-19.
Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, the chairman of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, said he was concerned that the public’s anxiety ought to be ‘‘roughly proportional to the risks they face’’.
He made withering criticisms of the Government’s handling of the crisis, saying its treatment of statistics was ‘‘not trustworthy’’ and amounted to ‘‘number theatre’’ rather than an attempt to properly inform the public.
The statistician said it was ‘‘extraordinary’’ that it was not known how many people had contracted the virus, because sampling of the public only began late last month.
And he warned that monthly figures showed the total number of deaths across the country – including those from the ‘‘collateral’’ damage of people not receiving the NHS care they needed – was almost double the normal figure for this time of year. Spiegelhalter avid told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC TV: ‘‘I think it’s very important that we are aware of what the risks are. My aim as a statistician is that people’s anxiety is roughly proportional to the actual risks that they face.’’
He highlighted data from the Office for National Statistics, detailing almost 30,000 deaths up to April 24.
As an example, he said two out of 10 million children under the age of 15 had died in England and Wales.
Acknowledging such cases were ‘‘very tragic’’ he added: ‘‘This is the tiniest risk you could ever think of.’’
Although children and young people may pass on Covid-19, their personal risk was ‘‘staggeringly low’’, Spiegelhalter said. Of 17 million people under the age of 25, 26 deaths had been recorded. However, the risk for people over 90 was 10,000 times as high, with more than 1 per cent of that group having died, he added. Risk doubled roughly every six or seven years with age.
Spiegelhalter said the Government’s attempt to communicate with the public was ‘‘completely embarrassing’’. He said the number of tests claimed to have been carried out was incorrect, as it included those posted out, and the number of deaths was an underestimate, describing it as ‘‘actually not trustworthy communication of statistics’’ and ‘‘a missed opportunity’’.
Calling for the public to be treated ‘‘with some respect’’, he said people were ‘‘hungry for details, for facts’’ but were being given ‘‘what I call number theatre’’ that seemed to be coordinated by ‘‘a No 10 communications team’’. Spiegelhalter said it was ‘‘extraordinary’’ that it was not known how many Britons had been infected. If deaths were about 35,000, with an infection fatality rate of about 1 per cent, it would mean 3.5 million people had been infected. But he said some experts believed the fatality rate might be half that, suggesting seven million infections.
The ONS was only asked on April 17 to survey how many people had been infected, he said.
Figures suggested that in the four weeks ending April 24, there had been around 79,000 deaths, up from an average of 42,000 for that period in the past five years, the professor added. Of the additional 37,000, around 27,000 had Covid-19 on the death certificate, leaving thousands of extra deaths ‘‘unexplained’’. He said he agreed with other experts that the ‘‘indirect effects or the collateral damage’’ – such as that caused by the disruption of the NHS – was likely to be a significant factor, and warned that deaths in care homes were running at three times the normal rate. – Telegraph Group