So what is two times 18,000?

When I started this blog I said I would look occasionally at the use of maths and statistics. Journalists are not known for their numeric skills and this is ably demonstrated by a story that went round the wires a couple of days ago. To quote just one such headline from the web coverage: " Swine flu rate doubled last week, according to new figures" and it goes on to say: "There were 27,000 confirmed new cases of H1N1 swine flu last week, an increase on the 18,000 cases the previous week..." So twice times 18,000 is 27,000? Er, shurely shome mishtake! I also said I'd criticise any irresponsible journalism but the Daily Mail just makes that too easy. I'll wait until a paper with some credibility starts doing daft things.

Count me out

Journalists, by and large, don't do maths. Ask them what 40 per cent of 40 is and they won't have a clue. Ask them what the difference is between a median average and a mode average and they'll just look blankfaced. It's only when they come to fill out their expenses that they suddenly become boy geniuses about tax and compound interest. And I count myself as among those who are statistics-blind. However, I hopefully can at least ask questions and spot when some table or graph looks or smells a bit dodgy. So I'm going to start an occasional series of swine flu stats presented by journalists. And here's the first, courtesy of the BBC website...

It purports to show swine flu increases in the last week but (and it may be just me being thick) surely without any figures it's meaningless. If eight people died in China one week and 12 the next, that's a 50 per cent increase - worrying but 'only' four more people. But if 600 died one week and 900 the next, that's still a 50 per increase but now it's 300 who died in one week. So the BBC table tells us almost nothing. Or is it me?