Statistics, Lies or reassurance.

All Johnson wanted was Brexity nodding dogs ( remember the lying chants round the cabinet table of twenty billions of new hospitals/ nurses?) He knew he didn’t want anyone with a modicum of talent or guts and we are paying the price.

You could call the care minister Helen Whately "highly educated" if you rate a PPE degree from Oxford to that extent. It is not uncommon for priveledged private school pupils to take that route.

What is apparent is that she seems totally out of her depth and comes across as clueless.

Even for those of us who have never been enthusiastic supporters of the Conservative party, it is shocking just how incompetent this government is. It is as if BJ chose ministers because they were compliant yes-men, not likely to compete with him. Incompetenc seems almost to have been a qualification for the job.

Thank you Daisymae I suppose that just goes to show that education isn't everything a degree of common sense is necessary and the ability to answer questions might help.

trisher - The Care Minister is not very young. She is in her mid 40s and has 3 children. She is also highly educated.

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the government say they were way ahead of other countries earlier in the year regarding testing and manufacturing tests? So what went wrong?

To be honest trisher I have a tiny weenie bit of sympathy for Matt Hancock because I think that he really has been handed a smoking bomb. Even the DT seems to think Whitehall sources" think he should go. Jeremy Hunt seems more than ready to stick a few knives in the back of the person who replaced him.

I saw him in person at a hustings before the last election and I know somebody who runs with him. I don't think he's a nasty Tory MP and I've heard he's very polite and amiable, but he's seriously not up to it. When asked a difficult question, he just says something to get the questioner off his back - like parents do when their little children ask something awkward.

As for Helen Whately, the Care minister, I'm afraid she really is clueless.

I wouldn't put any money on either of them still being in the same job when the dust has settled a bit.

"We don't know what we are doing, we don't know what we are going to do and we have no idea when we will manage to do anything"
Matt Hancock increasingly looks as if he has been left holding a smoking bomb and with no one to pass it to.

Could anybody translate this into plain English please?

"We are ramping up our testing capacity and our capacity for contact-tracing in a matter of weeks, and we’ll have it ready to make sure that we can use that as and when the incidence of transmission comes down.
It isn’t as tied to the specific decision that we’re required by law to take in just over two weeks time [the review of the lockdown].
The effectiveness of test, track and trace to keep the reproductive rate of this virus down is determined by the incidence in the community and our goal is to get to a point where we can test, track and trace everybody who needs it."

Matt Hancock said it today in the HoP, but I'm wondering what it means.

I wonder if Hancock himself knows what it mean, or has he just been told to say it, along with all the other stuff he comes out with?

So what is your point Teetime?

The point is that more people died in the weeks up to 10 April than would have been expected and were reported by the government. It could be that there's some totally unknown disease flouting about, which has killed off thousands of extra people, but it doesn't sound very likely.

And now we have a Care Minister, who doesn't have a clue what the statistics mean (or has been told to shut up about them). She doesn't inspire confidence.

I must google her. I thought she looked just out of school.

Dont worry about not getting my point growstuff.

trisher I saw her last week. Helen Something? She's truly awful, isn't she? And not so young as she looks.

I don't really understand the point you're making Teetime. The ONS death figures are robust. They are the number of registered deaths in England and Wales for any given week. Scotland and NI have their own systems, but show similar trends.

There is a lag between the government's daily tally and the ONS because deaths aren't always registered on the day they occur. They also include all deaths, not just those who have tested positive for Covid-19 and have died in hospitals. The ONS figures, without any shadow of a doubt, are more accurate, despite being a week or so behind.

What is worrying is, as the FT quite rightly claims, is that the number of excess deaths is in thousands. Comparisons have been made with the last five years, comparing deaths on a weekly basis.

There is absolutely no doubt that the number of deaths where Covid-19 has been a significant factor has been underreported.

There are also some deaths, which did not have Cocid-19 on the certificate. The reason why non Covid-19 deaths have also increased is still unknown, but should not distract from the two main messages:

Overall deaths have increased beyond what would have been expected
Covid-19 deaths are higher than those the government has reported.

Sorry MaizieD I didn't see that one. Watching the Care Minister on GMB she looked like a rabbit in the headlights. She is very young. She kept saying they would have more accurate figures next week, but the FT ones were wrong. It seems that the situation is out of control.

The FT is using the figures of 'excess deaths' for their calculations from the weekly figures of death registrations which are now being published every Tuesday by the Office of National Statistics (ONS). The article trisher linked to is free to read; it explains how the FT's figure is arrived at.

varian did start a thread on the ONS figures which has been ignored. I hope this one gets more interest.

Teetime, a fair and valid point. The trend towards increase in the death rate for older people has been increasing over the past 10 years or more.

I think they are giving us the numbers they know at any one time but we know there are big holes in the data collecting. I'm looking for trends rather than exact numbers.

In answer to your question trisher, my first response is 'who knows'. I'm inclined to believe the information in the FT. It's generally well regarded as a source of accurate information. It must be more difficult to simply respond with the usual accusations that 'it's a Labour/Tory paper.

I'm struggling to reach a conclusion about cockup v incompetence, on many of the serious difficulties eg in the lack of planning this pandemic has highlighted. The current front bench doesn't instil confidence.