Infection rate was lower in Scotland than England, says statistics body
The Covid-19 infection rate was lower in Scotland than England in the second week of January, the UK Statistics Authority has said, following claims ni cola sturgeon“twisted” data from this period.
Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie reported Ms Sturgeon to the statistics watchdog after she quoted figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) infection survey in the Scottish Parliament last week.
Infection rates in England were “over 20 per cent higher than those in Scotland”, Ms Sturgeon said. the ons figures showed 5.47 percent of people in England were estimated to be infected, compared to 4.49 per cent in Scotland.
In a letter to UK Statistics Authority chairman Sir David Norgrove, Lib Dem MSP Willie Rennie said he was “concerned that these statistics may have been seriously twisted”.
He said: “Public confidence in these statistics must not be put at risk. There must be no bias, spin or manipulation.”
Responding to Mr Rennie, Mr Norgrove said the First Minister had correctly stated the figure in Scotland was more than 20 per cent lower than that in England.
He wrote: “The First Minister was comparing these two proportions and correctly stated that the figure for England was more than 20 per cent higher than the figure for Scotland.
"It would also be correct to say that the prevalence of Covid-19 was around one percentage point higher in England than in Scotland.”
"Quantitative comparisons should take account of the precision with which they are available, but data suggests the rate of infection is lower in Scotland than in England.”