The BBC are at it again. No ‘bad news’ is worth examining in detail before making it their headline news.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52341403
Today’s lead, on the BBC radio and web site at least, is the statistical guess from the National Care Forum that, from deaths in their homes, deaths in all other Care homes are probably much higher than so far announced.
The NCL represents ‘not for profit’ care homes. They have about 111 members. There are 21,723 Care homes in the U.K.
So, the NCL represent 0.5% of all Care homes.
If that number was reflected across all residential and nursing homes, NCF estimated there have been 4,040 coronavirus-related deaths in care homes which are not yet included in official figures.
This smacks of more sloppy statistics, which have already got us into this mess.
Maybe the NCL Care homes, being not for profit, rightly cater to the less affluent. Maybe they are in higher density urban area. And maybe their residents have higher co-morbidities than other care providers.
And just, maybe, you cannot simply project the NCL’s death rates to every other Care home without actually checking the figures first.
But that would require journalism rather than sensationalism.