Royal Statistical Society Launches Covid-19 Task Force

The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) has launched a 'task force' to provide its collective expertise to UK national and devolved governments and public bodies, regarding statistical issues during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The initiative follows the Society's recent statement regarding the pandemic, in which President Professor Deborah Ashby acknowledged that 'the statistical community has a key role to play'. Founded by RSS President Elect, Professor Sylvia Richardson (pictured), who co-chairs the initiative with past President Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, supported by a steering group, the scope of RSS members' work on Covid-19 encompasses the design of data collection, diagnostic studies, modelling, forecasting and treatment studies, and other areas.

Specifically, the task force's remit includes supporting the production of evidence-based analyses; and emphasising the importance of statistical principles and best statistical practice in relation to the analysis of observational data. The task force will also contribute to the design of future data collection; and will engage in increasing public understanding of the statistical issues linked to Covid-19.

To date, RSS's contributions on Covid-19 have included a statistician's guide to coronavirus numbers; an article published in the Observer regarding those coronavirus statistics that can be trusted and what should be ignored; a New Scientist podcast relating to 'flattening the curve'; and input into a piece broadcast on BBC Radio 4 which focused on the possibility of coronavirus-related death counts being misleading, because of delays in reporting.

Web site: www.rss.org.uk .