Page 4 - Royal Statistical News Today

Getting a coronavirus vaccine is safer than driving or cycling to work, a Government scientific adviser has said. Professor Stephen Reicher said having a Covid-19 jab is “actually one of the safer things you do in the day”. Figures suggest the risk of developing a rare blood clot is about four people in a million who receive the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has said, prompting a change in course to offer under 30s in the UK an al...

All viruses change through random mutations. Through genomic sequencing we now know that the UK epidemic was seeded by more than 1,000 distinct variants from people returning from Italy, Spain and France in February and March 2020, explaining why we got off to such a bad start. These tiny changes are mostly inconsequential. Sometimes the virus gets lucky and spreads more easily, or causes more severe illness, in which case it earns the label...

Trailblazing women in statistics Lynne Billard Women have been leaders in the field of statistics for decades, with contributions ranging from theoretical developments to applications in biology, climatology and medicine. A recent paper by University of Georgia statistics professor Lynne Billard, “Women Trailblazers in the Statistical Profession,” provides a historical introduction to these remarkable scholars from around the globe. Billard met or knew several of these extraordinary women. ...

Behind the numbers: the policy of giving as many first jabs as possible is already cutting hospital admission rates

Is 12 weeks between Covid jabs too long? David Spiegelhalter and Anthony Masters © Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Observer The UK has a controversial policy of giving second doses of coronavirus vaccine 12 weeks after the first dose, rather than the three-week gap used in other countries. What is the reasoning behind what the First, since there are limited doses of vaccine, this strategy means protecting more people, faster. This is an optimisation pr...

Covid-19 and influenza are both respiratory diseases, but there are important differences, which statistics can help us understand. First, Sars-CoV-2 is more infectious than seasonal flu. We’re used to hearing about the reproduction number R, the average number of people whom someone with the virus will infect. In a population without immunity and policies such as social distancing, R for Sars-CoV-2 is now estimated to be around 3. New mutations...

Behind the numbers: the short answer is yes, and scientists still have much to learn about it

Join Tim Harford and Amanda Glassman as they discuss Harford’s new book, The Data Detective. Already a bestseller in the UK, the book uses new research in science and psychology to set out ten strategies for using statistics to erase our biases and replace them with new ideas that use virtues like patience, curiosity, and good sense to better understand ourselves and the

Behind the numbers: why some European countries have called into question the AstraZeneca jab

While the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the European Medicines Agency have both approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for all adults, Germany, France and six other European nations have recommended it only for those under 65, Belgium and Italy for people under 55 and Switzerland for nobody at all. Why are different regulators making different decisions? The problem is the relevant trials recruited only 660...