In recent weeks, you may have spoken with friends and family who’ve seen their income and living standards impacted in some way by COVID-19. They may have been furloughed and are concerned about whether they will have a job to return to or perhaps they have experienced a reduction in business if they are self-employed. […]
Note: this blog post was updated on 27 August 2020. Today we published the findings of our review of user engagement in the statistics producers that make up the Defra Group. The Defra Group produces a large and broad collection of statistics covering many topic areas, including food, farming and the environment, and the statistics […]
Over the last few months while we’ve been social distancing, some of us have been self-isolating, and many of us have been and will continue to experience social connectivity in a different way. Prior to the Covid-19 crisis, we started looking at statistics around loneliness and social isolation. Over the past six months we’ve been […]
Data has played an important role in responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, driving newfound recognition of its value in understanding society and shaping policy. One of the features of the pandemic is that it has taught us the value of things that may have been taken for granted: family, social contact, key workers who keep […]
UKSA Chair Sir David Norgrove has written to Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to reiterate concerns with the official data on testing and highlight the importance of good data as the Test and Trace programme is taken forward. Statistics published by government should shed light on key issues. They should […]
Today, 12 May 2020, marks 200 years since the birth of Florence Nightingale. At a time when the world is relying so heavily on nurses it has never been more appropriate to celebrate an individual who revolutionised the nursing profession by bringing about massive sanitation reform, and who showed great compassion caring for injured soldiers. […]
Working out the prevalence of Covid-19 in the population is one of the crucial components of understanding the pandemic and the timing of relaxation of lockdown measures. We’ve been looking at the way that targets for Covid-19 have been defined and measured. And we received a number of emails and comments from members of the […]
The pandemic has triggered its own oft-repeated tropes. Like ‘no-one has had enough of experts now’ or variants thereon (see this piece in the Irish Times). Or that while it’s good to be guided by the science, the “science” is not just a single monolithic block of knowledge (here’s an excellent piece by Dominic Abrams). […]
Stories of extraordinary human feats abound in this pandemic. They include the efforts of health and care professionals and personal commitments to support others in the community, perhaps best shown by Captain Tom Moore. Statisticians are not on the front line of dealing with the impacts of Covid-19. Yet it is clear that one of […]
Social care is in crisis across Great Britain. With responsibility for social care being a devolved matter, each country has its own system in place but all share common problems. Given the urgency of the crisis, which is exacerbated by the current Covid-19 pandemic, there is growing interest in what others are doing and what […]