R number for UK below 1 for first time since August

Re:R number for UK below 1 for first time since August by learnstats2 on Friday November 27, 2020 @07:13PM (#25233831)

I have found it consistently disappointing that the BBC has been putting out UK government statistics and interpretations uncritically - as we see (for example) in the headline here.

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Re:R number for UK below 1 for first time since August by Zhyl on Friday November 27, 2020 @07:19PM (#25233865)

The More or Less podcast, also from the BBC, does a good job of digging into what the stats actually mean and whether they're correct or misleading.

Their main beef over the pandemic has been when ministers and the government have been lying fairly explicitly about testing targets (counting posted tests as completed tests).

I find BBC as a whole hasn't been as critical, but they certainly seem to be at least making an effort to explain and contextualise. They aren't parroting government statistics as much as they could be doing.

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Re:R number for UK below 1 for first time since August by lkramer on Saturday November 28, 2020 @03:01PM (#25240054)

My feeling is that the BBC has been quite spooked by the threats the Tories made to them after the last election to basically dismantle them. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/dec/15/boris-johnson-...

Straight out of the Trump playbook of course... Every critical question and exposure of wrong doing is actually just biased media.

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Re:R number for UK below 1 for first time since August by secondcoming on Friday November 27, 2020 @10:51PM (#25235116)

They purged all the journalists capable of doing what you want.

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