A different field

I have felt very dejected today at a general inability to understand even the most basic of statistics. It is not OK to say that the UK has the worst Covid-19 record in Europe because it has the most deaths. At the very least it has to be assessed as a percentage of the population. The UK seems likely to end up with the worst record, but it's not there yet. I tried to say why, clearly and politely, in reply to a post on Facebook and got this response: 'I still think it’s disgraceful that so many people have died, and that numerically we are the worst in Europe. That’s the statistic. Not just percentages.'

This from someone who has worked all their life in critiquing evidence, but in a different field. I don't know where to start, other than back in primary school. Maybe in journalism college would help too.


More happily, I was pleased to be hauled out for a walk this afternoon - my walking muscles were beginning to atrophy. For some reason my days are feeling very short at the moment. I have far more to fit into them than I can manage - and it's too easy not to exercise. 

This field, which I hope is uncontentious, made me muse on now interesting it is that on a domestic scale we shave the green and eradicate the yellow but on a larger scale we relish the abundance.