A fortnight after the graph looked like it might be peaking, it still does not look very healthy, particularly in the UK. Although where we really are, given the disruption of the Christmas to New Year period, is far from clear. And given the use of rolling averages to smooth the data, reasonable enough when one is tracking 15 lines on the one graphic, I associate to my dislike of seasonally adjusted statistics, often preferring to look at raw data, making one's own allowance for seasonality. In this case maybe I would prefer to make my own allowance for the holiday disruption.
The same issue of the FT, that is to say today's, carries an article about the lateral flow test. Presumably available, cheap and quick to administer, all important considerations, but also giving lots of false negatives. So trapping and hopefully isolating plenty of infection, but possibly encouraging risky behaviour in the false negatives. A good bit of news being that some lateral flow tests are much better than others. A bad bit of news being that we have plumped for one of the others.
Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/12/not-yet-peaked.html.
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