Vaccination progress is excellent - but it's worth noting there are disparities. It was good to hear in yesterday's Number 10 press conference that some of these disparities are being reduced.
Let's look at the most recent data (published 14 April, for vaccinations to 7 April)
The first disparity is age. But this is due to prioritization based on risk and makes sense.
But when you combine this with location, you can see that London stands out. More generally, urban areas are likely to be under-vaccinated.
For ethnicity, black people are far less likely to have been vaccinated (as at 7 April)
And the most striking disparity is whether you live in a deprived area. IMD is the Index of Multiple Deprivation and goes from 1 (most deprived) to 10 (least deprived).
Without reducing these inequalities, there is a risk that the virus will re-emerge most strongly in the least deprived communities. Some of these communities may have been highly exposed already, which is a factor that complicates things, as well as correlations between factors.
You are far more likely to have been vaccinated if you are white, from a least deprived, rural area than being black, from a deprived, urban area.
Very hard work is being carried out to reduce these differences in vaccination rates. It's hard work and is very much appreciated.
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The UK Covid Public Inquiry has published its first Report, on Resilience and Preparedness. It is the most urgent report, as we are still ill-prepared for the next pandemic.
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This is the first of many reports, each reviewing a specific area, including healthcare systems; test, trace, and isolate; and the economic response to the pandemic.
The Module 1 Report sets out nine significant flaws from the Covid-19 pandemic:
"Inflation is currently 10%. If inflation halves, how much will a £1 pint of milk cost".
Sounds easy. It's not. It's ambiguous. It's not a good question. Unless it's designed to be a bad question. In which case it's a good question.
1. It talks about 'inflation'. But *what* inflation? At the moment, we have overall inflation at roughly 10% but inflation of food at roughly 20%. So is the overall inflation rate the same as the inflation rate for milk? It's not clear. Bad question.
First, the @ONS Covid Infection Survey is being paused, and @CovidGenomicsUK is being retired. This will have implications for data reliability and availability going forward.
OK, I'm going to write a response to this maths problem, published in @DailyMailUK, that has caused a lot of comment, some thinking the answer is 1 and some thinking the answer is 9.
Many of us would go straight to the answer 1. That's because we know (or our children know, and have taught us), that there is a 'rule' for how you deal with the order of doing the calculation - do you do + first or ÷, for example?
Enter BIDMAS (or BODMAS).
"It stands for Brackets, Indices [or Order], Division, Multiplication, Addition and Subtraction."
That's the conventional order. Forget about indices [or order] for now - that's not important for this one. bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topic…