By Prof Utpal K De, Dr Arjun Kumar
Everyone is well aware of the uses of statistics how data is used to reveal some facts like changes of some variables over time and across communities depending on various aspects of society. Also, data is used to correlate various factors and form welfare policies. However, there are several abuses of statistics too. For example, a positive change in any aspect might directly be credited to its respective policy.
However, we ignore the other side impacts or external factors due to which the change might have occurred. If one excludes these factors, one might realise that the policy, by itself, might have had minimal impact.
In Sweden, upper-secondary schools moved online while lower-secondary schools remained open during the spring of 2020. A comparison of parents with children in the final year of lower-secondary and first year of upper-secondary school shows that keeping the former open had limited consequences for the overall transmission of the virus. However, the infection rate doubled among lower-secondary teachers relative to upper-secondary ones.