No surprise but the R number does deviate quite significantly with local outbreaks. We should have held out till 0.5 though rather than around the 0.7 restrictions were lifted.
Based on how it tracked before though with infections rising all over Europe anyone who doesn't think the UK will follow suit is clearly misguided. And bringing it back to news the lack of reporting on UK figures over the last couple of weeks and not putting the European figures into the context of the UK figures has let audiences down IMO.
The entire R thing is based on data from three weeks ago, so its only "breaking" in the context of the situation at the beginning of August, which is of little relevance to anybody except Dr Who and Doctor Emmett Brown.
The Daily Mail website quite often has one article saying "R Rate is 0.9 and RISING" or similar, and then either directly below it, "Is infection SHRINKING?" and "Infections going up, but hospitals are EMPTY?" next to that. They can't all be right!
The Express & Star's daily guaranteed article is "x new deaths", which leads to three paragraphs of text written in such a way as to imply its a major disappointment there aren't more. Like a budget Daily Mail, only without all the capitals.
It could be argued the media aren't really helping the situation.
Should probably be more emphasis that it is overwhelmingly the devolved administrations that are contributing to the rate possibly being above 1 (with the rate for England being bounded by 1 in comparison to a minimum of one in NI and a rate that is probably above 1 in Scotland).
And there lies a problem with the news. In my region of Yorkshire the rate is 0.8-1.0 yet the media are simply reporting a
national
rise. If there was a brief explanation as to which regions are seeing which rises and then giving a brief breakdown of how the rate is calculated then that could make things a bit easier to understand.
We're not stupid and yet the BBC et al seem to think "oh our viewers don't have enough attention span so we'll just give them the results"
And there lies a problem with the news. In my region of Yorkshire the rate is 0.8-1.0 yet the media are simply reporting a
national
rise. If there was a brief explanation as to which regions are seeing which rises and then giving a brief breakdown of how the rate is calculated then that could make things a bit easier to understand.
We're not stupid and yet the BBC et al seem to think "oh our viewers don't have enough attention span so we'll just give them the results"
WRONG!
The particularly worrying thing about a rise led by NI and Scotland being reported as a UK wide thing is that it is giving those who want to criticise the UK government, which has just about no say in the policies in these areas, fake news* to do so when realistically it should be Nicola Sturgeon and Arlene Foster who are in for criticism.
*technically the news isn't completely fake but it is seriously short of acceptable standards for supposedly impartial broadcasters to allow coverage of the story in a way that they know full well will be interpreted by many as a way to criticise the UK government when in this particular case it is the Scottish and Northern Irish administrations largely to blame.
The R Rate really is not a good comparison to follow, especially as it just leads to doomongering every Friday! Surely the more tests you do (and the testing has been going up) the more cases you find-even the Hospital numbers are still going down.
And there lies a problem with the news. In my region of Yorkshire the rate is 0.8-1.0 yet the media are simply reporting a
national
rise. If there was a brief explanation as to which regions are seeing which rises and then giving a brief breakdown of how the rate is calculated then that could make things a bit easier to understand.
We're not stupid and yet the BBC et al seem to think "oh our viewers don't have enough attention span so we'll just give them the results"
WRONG!
The particularly worrying thing about a rise led by NI and Scotland being reported as a UK wide thing is that it is giving those who want to criticise the UK government, which has just about no say in the policies in these areas, fake news* to do so when realistically it should be Nicola Sturgeon and Arlene Foster who are in for criticism.
*technically the news isn't completely fake but it is seriously short of acceptable standards for supposedly impartial broadcasters to allow coverage of the story in a way that they know full well will be interpreted by many as a way to criticise the UK government when in this particular case it is the Scottish and Northern Irish administrations largely to blame.
As if they two would ever get criticised by the media, especially Nicola sturgeon all she’s had in the news is praise (apart from the exam results).