Covid-19

It seems that a quarter of A level-students preparing to go to university haven’t been set any work by teachers. So… what does that tell you about the rest of them, the ones who aren’t the focus of teacher attention? Perhaps all over the country, there is a frenzy of education going on. It just hasn’t happened very much in my vicinity. Except, from what I can gather, from people with children in private schools. I do know of teachers who’ve heroically gone out of their way to teach, set work and mark it (it takes more time marking online) but it’s by no means the norm. How about the summer holidays lasting a month rather than six weeks, to take some account of the time lost?

This week, the government has published a better measure of Covid-19 deaths by widening it out from hospital deaths to all settings. But what about those who have died without having had a test? Does the ‘improved’ estimate go far enough?  I think the simple answer is no. The mortality data is rising at a rate that suggests many more are dying who have not been tested. But there are ways of estimating and, as the former head of health analysis at the ONS, I have conducted my own study.  As of Wednesday 29 April, my figure is 45,290 deaths linked to Covid-19 in Great Britain. This is far higher than the 26,097 issued by the Government that day. Let me explain how I arrive at my estimate.

Without making any efforts in that direction, I now know all about a certain telecom firm’s future business plans. My neighbours are working from home, loudly, with their kitchen windows open. I want to scream: ‘I can’t turn my ears off, and I don’t have a mute function!’ Call me old-fashioned, but if they continue to corporate grandstand at the tops of their voices during laptop conference calls without specifically telling me that everything I’m hearing is off the record, then I’m treating them as primary source material. ‘Guys, that’s confidential. Our ears only,’ one of them keeps shouting through her kitchen window. Why not close the window, as a first step to keeping this company’s logistical secrets secret?

For years, ministers from successive governments have conducted drills for all kinds of pandemic scenarios. But they never imagined a lockdown. It’s a new tool, and its implications — and side effects — have never been properly tested. So no one really thought about the effect it would have on something like domestic abuse. Before the lockdown, it was estimated that two women a week were killed by their current or former partners. But that was when they could move freely. On Friday, the Metropolitan Police announced they had made 4,000 domestic abuse arrests in the last six weeks, with calls about abuse rising by around a third over that time. The number of charges and cautions has risen by about 24 per cent on this time last year. And this is just in London.

At the risk of breaching lockdown etiquette, I feel it would be remiss not to mention that the stats on Covid-19 infections, hospital admissions and deaths have been stable or falling for around a fortnight. Since 5 April, there have been many more tests for coronavirus carried out, but numbers testing positive have been falling, which is significant. Also, today's reported deaths of 449 are considerably fewer than half the peak of 10 days ago – and although we all know the daily reported total of deaths is less than the actual total, and that there is often a dip after a weekend, that trend is like-for-like, so it is relevant.