Chris

We are now at the point in the news cycle where nothing new is happening and journalists are re-running the same story whenever they can get somebody different to give their take on it. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book. I’ve filed screeds of copy that way in my time.

We have known for weeks that the headline death rate only includes those who die in hospital and who have tested positive for Covid-19. We have known for almost as long that the ONS is compiling a more comprehensive figure that will include deaths outside hospitals - such as the care home deaths in this case - but that this is lagging the headline figure by days because they are doing it carefully and with methodology they have had to design and implement in a bit of a hurry.

As usual Den you are far too eager to jump on the ohmygosheverythingisawfulpanicpanicpanic bandwagon. Things are actually quite bad enough without sensationalist non-news nonsense like this. For the sake of your mental wellbeing you should put the internet (and all news outlets) down for the rest of the day. Sit in the garden if you can, get some sunshine. Everyone is doing their best here. Nobody is sitting in their lair twirling their moustache and plotting how best to feck up the official statistics. We’ll get there.