For months the COVID-19 actuaries bit their lips, knowing that COVID-19 deaths were being under reported. It was in the pubic interest for them not to challenge Government.

Now there appears to be a much smaller amount of over-reporting of COVID deaths and the Government is calling the reporting of daily figures unreliable. The COVID-19 actuaries are unhappy. This is what they are saying on social media

The relative arguments

There has been noise since Friday about the unreliability of daily #COVID19 death figures in England, following recent news about over-registering of deaths. It doesn’t really change anything. In our latest bulletin ‘Deaths, #ExcessDeaths and #Statistics’   John Roberts and Matthew Edwards re-state our belief that the metric of excess deaths is the most reliable way of gauging the pandemic’s impact.

Hence, nothing has changed – it remains the case that over 60,000 have (very likely) died from COVID-19.

But, although the ‘quantitative’ aspect is almost immaterial, we are concerned that the ‘qualitative’ aspect – of reduced #publictrust in the numbers, or Government advice – may have unwarranted consequences.

With thanks also to Stuart McDonald for review and support.

Tan Suee Chieh Dan Ryan Matthew Fletcher Nicola Oliver Adrian Pinington Adrian Baskir Colin Dutkiewicz Louise Pryor Joseph Lu Colette Dunn John Burn-Murdoch Dr Joe McGilligan Hamish Birrell Chris Daykin Erik Vynckier Erik Pickett Paul Waterhouse Ruth V Gilbert Dan Georgescu Peter Tompkins Dermot Grenham Margaret de Valois FIA Henry Tapper