Chris

It looks like the 90% protection rate is established from a sample of participants in the trial that is too small to justify headlining the 90% figure. Most participants seem to have been given the dosage regimen that resulted in 62% protection. Nevertheless the scientists appear to be sufficiently confident they can replicate 90% protection in a large trial of that regimen that that’s what they really want to talk about this morning.

The BBC original report however is what almost inevitably happens when you give technical press releases to the non specialist, probably quite junior hacks running the graveyard shift. The word “disappointment” shouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near the page. That wasn’t in the Oxford press release and isn’t attributed to anyone else who might actually know what they were talking about. It is however the sort of interpretive commentary the BBC is very good at - suggesting what people should think about the news rather than just telling it as it is. Try watching any live to-camera report on the Six or the Ten and see how many of them sign off with an unattributed suggestion as to how “many” will react to what’s just been said.

And I won’t go off on one about the editors’ code of conduct that makes clear the importance of clear distinctions between a journalist reporting the news and a journalist offering opinion or commentary ...