Key calculation for “adjusted population growth” does not seem to relate to any credible figure for actual population growth

27 Nov 2020 | Full Fact news
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FACT CHECK
Daily Mail wrong to say that fatalities this winter are barely any higher than usual

In an article last week headlined “What they DON’T tell you about Covid”, the Daily Mail claimed the number of weekly deaths is currently “barely any higher” than the maximum level from the previous five years.

But this is wrong—it is based on incorrect figures.

As pointed out in a Twitter thread by Conservative MP Neil O’Brien, the Daily Mail’s chart claims that in the 44th week of 2020, 10,887 people died, while the maximum number of deaths in the 44th week of the previous five years was 10,861—just 26 lower.

While the first figure is correct, the second is wrong. Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for deaths registered weekly in England and Wales show that the highest number of deaths in week 44 between 2015 and 2019 was actually 10,164 in 2019.

That’s 723 lower—a much more significant figure.

The Mail’s figure for 2019 was around 7% higher than it should have been. The reason for this difference appears to be that it was increased to account for population growth, even though the population has not grown by anything near 7% since last year.

The Daily Mail sources these figures for “adjusted for population growth” to a Twitter account called “the Statistics Guy Jon”—although the relevant tweet has since been deleted, and the account has "noted an error”. The Daily Mail has since amended its graph.
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Four days to go until the Big Give Christmas Challenge! ([link removed])

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FACT CHECK
Email from Nadine Dorries’ office is genuine, but minister says she didn’t sign it off ([link removed])

Viral images of an email sent from the office of MP Nadine Dorries appear to show the health minister advising people that they will face short-term restrictions if they refuse a future coronavirus vaccine “to prevent you infecting anyone else until society has achieved herd immunity.”

The email, written by one of Ms Dorries’ caseworkers, is indeed genuine but she later said in a tweet that “this correspondence was not signed off by me and does not reflect my view or government policy in any way.”

The government has previously said that there are no plans to introduce a Covid-19 vaccine in a way that penalises those who do not take up the vaccine.

However, it added that it will “carefully consider all options to improve vaccination rates, should that be necessary.”
Could vaccines be mandatory? ([link removed])
The latest episode of the Full Fact Podcast is out now! ([link removed])

False information is created faster and at a much greater volume than any human being could ever keep up with.

But will this always be the case? Could technology help to prevent bad information from spreading at the very moment it’s created? How far away is this technology, and what tools do we already have now?

We speak to Mevan Babakar, who founded Full Fact’s Automated Fact Checking team, and Andy Dudfield, who now leads it.

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FACT CHECK
Research suggesting increased Covid-19 risk for dog-owners may be barking up the wrong tree ([link removed])

Recent research from the University of Granada in Spain has claimed that people who walk their dog are at higher risk from contracting Covid-19 than people who either don’t have a dog, or have a dog they don’t walk.

The paper suggests that this may be because dogs themselves are vectors for the virus, which ignores the possibility that the association may simply be because people going outdoors more often are more likely to have reported contracting Covid-19.

However the paper didn’t separate out the risk from going outside more frequently from the risk of having a dog. There is little evidence dogs act as vectors for the virus.

There are other problems with how the research was conducted which means we should be cautious when drawing any conclusions from it.

No effort was made to obtain a sample representative of the Spanish population, and the researchers also analysed around 40 variables. This is a relatively high number of variables to test, increasing the likelihood of finding an association between two variables where none exists.

The Daily Mirror and the Mail Online both repeated the claim that owning a dog could increase a person’s risk of catching Covid-19, although the former has since altered its headline, standfirst and main copy.
What did they get wrong? ([link removed])
MORE FACT CHECKS
Also this week...
* Danish study on mask efficacy only tells us half the story ([link removed])
* This picture of a vaccine vial from March 2020 is real ([link removed])
* The government plans to monitor potential adverse reactions to a Covid-19 vaccine, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be safe ([link removed])

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