Covid By Numbers

Making Sense of the Pandemic with Data

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A vital and concise data-driven analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world

How many people have died because of COVID-19? Which countries have been hit hardest by the virus? What are the benefits and harms of different vaccines? How does COVID-19 compare to the Spanish flu? How have the lockdown measures affected the economy, mental health and crime?

This year we have been bombarded by statistics - seven day rolling averages, rates of infection, excess deaths. Never have numbers been more central to our national conversation, and never has it been more important that we think about them clearly. In the media and in their Observer column, Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter and RSS Statistical Ambassador Anthony Masters have interpreted these statistics, offering a vital public service by giving us the tools we need to make sense of the virus for ourselves and holding the government to account.

In Covid by Numbers, theycrunch the data on a year like no other, exposing the leading misconceptions about the virus and the vaccine, and answering our essential questions. This timely, concise and approachable book offers a rare depth of insight into one of the greatest upheavals in history, and a trustworthy guide to these most uncertain of times.

Published: 30 September 2021
ISBN: 9780241541081
Imprint: Penguin eBooks
Format: EBook
Pages: 320

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Praise for Covid By Numbers

I couldn't imagine a better guidebook for making sense of a tragic and momentous time in our lives. Covid by Numbers is comprehensive yet concise, impeccably clear and always humane
Tim Harford, author of How To Make The World Add Up

A clear, concise statistical journal of the plague year. If you want to understand the numbers behind the virus that stopped the world, you ought to read this book
Tom Chivers, author of The Rationalists

Fantastic and wonderfully readable. A much needed antidote to the often murky and misinterpreted world of Covid data, explained in a straightforward and clear way - yet always remembering the humanity the data represents
Dr Hannah Fry

A clear and extremely readable guided tour of the pandemic... This book represents an extremely timely contribution... If journalists, politicians and the public were all provided with a copy then the debate would be vastly better informed, with much more light than heat
Oliver Johnson, Guardian