[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by Chris

The infection rate has never been a very good indicator of the spread of the virus in the UK because testing rates have been so low. Now testing rates are being ramped up, obviously the infection rate is going to seem to go up. As a means of detecting whether infection is spreading again it is not presently very useful. It will only become useful if we can sustain a large and fairly even rate of testing for a couple of weeks at least. Until then, the only fairly consistent, reliable indicator we have is deaths reported in hospital, which has been recorded with sufficient similarity across the country from the outset.

<SNIP>

As I've said in past posts, the death figures are the cast iron stats as to the state of the virus.

That said, the figures based on new tests should now be normalised (a well understood statistical technique) so that they can be represented from the start in the new normal.

Also it is now clear that comparison with other countries is meaningless except, perhaps, the death count.