Coronavirus: Disease Control

(asked on 10th September 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the accuracy of estimates published on the level of covid-19 in the community since the start of the outbreak; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Helen Whately Portrait
Helen Whately
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 12th October 2020

The Government estimates for the level of COVID-19 in the community arise as a consensus between a number of academic groups contributing to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies sub-group SPI-M. Key quantities, such as R, infection-fatality ratio, and incidence are derived from data-driven models, but cannot be assessed directly as they are not observable quantities.

Assessment is only indirectly possible, either through looking at the goodness of fit of the models to the observed data and through cross-checking with the community surveys such as the Office for National Statistics and the Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission study, or through the retrospective assessment of predictions.

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