rashbre central: lies, damn lies and statistics?

Thursday 7 May 2020

lies, damn lies and statistics?


That Health Minister Matt Hancock must be under a lot of pressure. He lashed out at an Labour MP Dr Rosena Allin-Khan who also happens to be a GP. The shadow health minister has been doing A&E shifts at a London hospital during the coronavirus outbreak and asked some perfectly reasonable questions in Parliament yesterday.

I'm wondering if the pressure is pushing Hancock to show his true colours? A few times I have listened to the explanations of numbers or the evasive way that questions have been answered. There was that 100,000 tests target by the need of April, which was mysteriously met by including home test kit send outs, but hasn't been again met since that original target date. And we are still hearing from Care Homes that they can't get tested.

Bluffer Boris has doubled down on Hancock's target, saying it will be 200,000 tests by the end of May.

Then there are the 400,000 PPE gowns flown from Turkey that are now deemed inadequate because they don't meet UK standards, although not actually saying (as of yet) what is wrong with them.

It's a bit rich, when we've seen people desperately making protective clothing out of bin bags and home sewing circles making masks, or hospital staff visiting their local DIY warehouses to get masks and other suits.

None of the much-heralded Dysons or Formula 1 ventilators have arrived either, so it all sounds a bit dubious around the thinly veneered Hancock podium.

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