Trying to answer my own questions about the fictional swine flu (see yesterday's entry below) has sent me surfing around the Scottish, Welsh and English/UK official swine flu sites. The Welsh seem to produce the clearest and the one written (ironically) as much as possible in plain English - presumably plain Welsh as well. I find the UK/English one the most confusing - not least as to whether graphs refer to England or the UK as a whole. But the Scottish and the UK/English reports both suffer from very confusing multi-coloured graphs that are hard to read. Indeed on occasion it seems nonsensical to even bother publishing them. Where are my friends at Straight Statistics when you need them!
It's also been interesting to see the regional variations in swine flu - there is the "Tayside effect", highlighted by the Courier and Flutrackers.com. And what about this throwaway remark in the latest Welsh report: "As at 23 September, there were 11 clinically-diagnosed patients in Wales hospitals in connection with swine flu, with three in critical care and no reports of underlying health conditions in any patients". That echoes WHO warnings about the riddle of patients with no underlying health problems.
I shall be back, hopefully tomorrow, with the identity of the members of my swine flu family most at risk from swine flu.
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