Yeah; some sibling comments here say Covid stats are difficult to interpret, but cite phenomena (non random samples, false positives, conflation of population and sample statistics, etc) that should be covered by any reasonable introductory statistics course.

In the US, that’s first or second year undergrad territory. Overseas, it’s often covered in high school.

It’s particularly depressing that science reporters regularly get these things wrong.

I can’t imagine what (lack of) credentials are necessary to land such a job, but I often wonder if a basic understanding of statistics is a disqualifying credential.