An independent statistician using data to understand our world and to predict the future
Last updated on 7th August 2020
The latest data for COVID19 (Coronavirus) cases in England as of Thursday 6th August 2020 show that whilst the number of cases in England is increasing, the percentage of tests resulting in a positive result is static. There are signs that local restrictions imposed so far are having an effect but it’s not possible to rule out that this is just reversion to the mean at work. [Read more…] about COVID19 Cases #1 – Latest Data and Trends for England
During the first wave of the COVID19 epidemic, the daily number of deaths published by Public Health England (PHE) has been the main headline in the news. On 17th July, Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health, called for a review of this time series after a blog published by Yoon Loke & Carl Heneghan of Oxford University questioned whether definition used by this time series was appropriate. I myself had noticed a change in the PHEr time series in my tracker of COVID19 deaths in England but I hadn’t understood why this might have been the case. After looking at the data again in more detail, I have concluded that this time series is overestimating the number of deaths by 42 +/- 13 per day since the 23rd May and it needs to be revised otherwise it will create confusion should a second wave come.
[Read more…] about COVID19 Deaths #2 – Are Public Health England’s Figures Misleading?
Last updated on 25th July 2020 – future updates will be infrequent.
The latest data for deaths due to COVID19 (Coronavirus) in England as of Friday 24th July 2020 show that the first wave of the pandemic is now over when one looks as excess deaths. People will still be dying of COVID19 for weeks yet but the overall number of excess deaths is now negative.
[Read more…] about COVID19 Deaths #1 – Latest Data and Trends for England
On 24th March 2020, the UK government suspended enforcement of the gender pay gap reporting deadline of 5th April. As of today, just over 50% of employers have reported their 2019 gender pay gap figures. Despite this shortfall, I have used statistical imputation methods to calculate that the median gender pay gap narrowed in 2019 from 9.6 pence in the pound to 9.0-9.2 pence in the pound.
[Read more…] about Pay Gap Trends #3 – Did the UK gender pay gap narrow in 2019?
In April, I was asked to analyse the trends in UK gender pay gaps over the 3 years of mandatory reporting from 2017 to 2019 for Practical Law. They were interested in 7 customised sectors and the links to these can be found in this post.
[Read more…] about Pay Gap Trends #2 – My analysis of 7 sectors for Practical Law magazine
The UK experienced its sunniest spring on record in 2020 by a huge margin. Both April and May were the sunniest on record and together they resulted in an average of 6.5 hours of sunshine per day compared to the normal 4.5 hours per day.
The UK experienced its 5th wettest and warmest winter on record in 2020.
The UK experienced unremarkable weather in all respects in Autumn 2019.
The 2019 summer was the 7th wettest on record but was also unusually warm given the amount of rain that fell. I have made a prediction that summer 2020 will not be a good one!
The 2019 spring was consistent with the step change in the autumnal climate that took place in the 1990s but was unremarkable otherwise
