Slapdown over Sajid’s claim that 200,000 a day could be infected

Watchdog blasts health agency’s Omicron figure

THE statistics watchdog has slapped down a public health quango over a contested claim about the spread of the Omicron variant.

The Office for Statistics Regulation criticised the UK Health Security Agency after Health Secretary Sajid Javid claimed in mid-December that there were 200,000 new Omicron infections a day.

The watchdog warned that this ‘caused confusion’ after officials failed to justify the figure for three days. It will raise further concerns about the UKHSA’s handling of figures after Dame Jenny Harries, the quango’s chief executive, was previously accused of using figures that inflated the potential risk of Omicron.

Mr Javid cited the UKHSA estimate as he addressed the Commons last month ahead of introducing stricter measures to slow transmission of the Omicron variant. But Professor David Spiegelhalter, at the University of Cambridge, said at the time that it was ‘naughty’ to produce the figure ‘without having a justification behind it’. He said a figure of 45,000 infections a day was more ‘plausible’.

On the day of Mr Javid’s statement on December 13, 81,864 people tested positive, according to official figures.

The Health Secretary told MPs at the time: ‘The UKHSA estimates that the current number of daily infections are around 200,000.’ However, when the UKHSA published a memo outlining the calculations behind the claim three days later, it revealed that the modelling had been abandoned as it was no longer correct to assume that the doubling rate of the variant would remain constant.

In the letter to UKHSA, Ed Humpherson, head of the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), wrote: ‘The Secretary of State mentioned an estimate of the daily number of infections of Covid, which was initially also unsupported by data. This caused confusion and some speculation in the media, which distracts from the message the statistics are conveying.

‘An explanation of the methodology used to arrive at the daily number of infections was published on December 16. OSR has previously made clear its expectation that data and methods should be made equally available to all before any planned statement is made. Transparency of data used to inform decisions is vital to public understanding and public confidence. In this case, the delay between the use of the figure and the publication of the data was unsatisfactory.’ In the letter, dated December 17, Mr Humpherson said he understood that health officials were planning to ensure that in future ‘announcements of high importance such as this will be suitably supported by data, if not before, then as soon as possible afterwards’.

He added: ‘I appreciate the urgency of this particular situation meant that the statement used the most up-todate data possible. But the general principles of transparency should still apply.’

Responding to the OSR warning, William Wragg, the Conservative chairman of the Commons public administration committee, told The Sunday Telegraph yesterday: ‘If ministers are making use of statistics they also at the same time should reference precisely the underlying assumptions and modelling.

‘There is a danger of public confidence in Covid data being put at risk.’

Dame Jenny was the source of a contested claim by Mr Javid that there was typically a 17-day lag between patients being infected and admitted to hospital. Independent experts pointed to ONS data suggesting a delay of nine or ten days.

‘Transparency of data is vital’