Yet again I had to draw this graph myself, and yet again, the U.K. Health Security Agency wants you to know that these rates are extremely, totally, absolutely unadjusted. They just don’t know precisely why or how.
As I noted on Twitter, it’s emerged that UKHSA inserted all of their ill-advised disclaimers after coming under fire from the Office of Statistics Regulation, a regulatory body which periodically complains about statistics published by the British Government.
OSR director Ed Humpherson met with UKHSA hours before they published their Week 43 report, demanding they do something about these awkward graphs. They responded by ditching the graphs altogether and calling every last number unadjusted. This failed to satisfy him, so in the days afterwards he issued this unbelievable open letter.
Dear Jenny,
COVID-19 vaccine surveillance statistics
Thank you for the constructive meeting on Thursday October 28th to discuss the UK Health Security Agency’s (UKHSA) COVID-19 vaccine surveillance statistics. We focused on the risk that the data presented on rates of positive cases for those who are vaccinated and those who are unvaccinated have the potential to mislead – and indeed we noted that these data have been used to argue that vaccines are ineffective.
We welcome the changes you have made to the Week 43 surveillance report, published on October 28th. It is also very good that you are working closely with my team and with the relevant teams in the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
