Just looking at some of the bare stats on C-19 you wonder if the Government made a mistake following “The Science”. If we look at the numbers of deaths caused by the virus by country we find only America has more deaths at 110,964, than the UK at 40,597.

Just looking at gross deaths however can be misleading. It is important to take account of the size of the population of countries to get a real handle on how they are doing. If we therefore look at deaths per 100,000 of population we find the UK is no longer 2nd worst they have dropped down the table to 4th worst. Ahead of them are Belgium pop 11,589,623, San Marino, pop 33,931, and Andorra, population 77,257.

The response of Ministers to such numbers is a challenge to the statistics. People record the numbers in all kinds of different ways and when the true numbers are known the picture will be very different. Well certainly accuracy of recording is something of an issue but it would be a brave person to suggest the bias will demonstrate what a great job the UK has done.

As I write there is a press briefing going on. It gets harder to motivate oneself to watch these now. You could write in advance 80% of the content. First, there will be an eye catching new initiative to control the virus or open the economy. Then their will be a change / reversal of the last eye catching initiative.

This change/reversal will be following “The Science” although we will not be able to see “The Science” for fear, no doubt, of misunderstanding it. This will ensure that we are now doing the right thing at the right time just as previously we were doing the right thing, only the opposite, at the previous right time

It is remarkable how the science seems to pirouette and leap around like a frenzied ballerina. If one were cynical one may begin to think the reassurances about how well the Government are doing are perhaps, optimistic.

There is, what I take to be an apocryphal story, of a boxing trainer who was encouraging his latest talent in a fight. The new talent was getting seven bells knocked out of him and returned to his corner at the bell with a black eye, split lip and multiple abrasions to his torso. His trainer, in order to reassure him said his opponent hadn’t laid a glove on him. The boxer replied, “Well keep an eye on that referee, cos some bastxxx’s knocking the stuffing out of me.”