Anyone watching question time?

GJJW

GJJW

Well-known member
This is a joke right? Tory saying we test 240,000 a day, fiona Bruce says no, your own figures say only 80,000 a day, and he says well capacity is 240,000 a day so same thing!
 
The whole testing thing has never been enough & Hancock never looks convincing with the announcements & stat juggling antics he's told to put out, he has a face that says even I don't believe what I'm saying, I'm always shocked his nose doesn't grow about 6 inches. The Tory MP on QT seems exactly the same.
 
I cant help but laugh listening to a Tory minister dismiss a professor of Epidemiology on the issue of herd immunity then immediately following that up with Hands>Face>Space.
 
I think thats the first time I've seen BBC air views from those who question the coronavirus potency, and whether its all been OTT.
 
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Ashworth- the Labour MP who was secretly recorded during the election campaign saying Corbyn was an electoral disaster waiting to happen. Al least he got that right😁
 
BFC_BFC_BFC said:
Maybe Fiona was referencing Pillar 1 tests only?
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Pillar 1 is only about 60,000, so I'm doubtful.

The only written reference I can find to the 80,000 figure is in The Mirror:

"At the moment around 70,000 to 80,000 tests are done daily"

However there is no source for the above claim and no indication at where it may have come from.

One thing I do notice in the article is: "The proportion of in-person results returned within 24 hours plunged to 33.3%"

Now, the claimed daily testing for Pillars one and two has been floating between 210,000 - 240,000 for the last week or so and I can't help but notice that if you multiply that figure by the percentage mentioned above you end up with (drum roll.......) 70,000 - 80,000.

So is that where the figure comes from? If so do I have to point out how bogus it is to say that if the results aren't returned within 24 hours the test hasn't been done at all?
 
Lost Seasider said:
Pillar 1 is only about 60,000, so I'm doubtful.

The only written reference I can find to the 80,000 figure is in The Mirror:

"At the moment around 70,000 to 80,000 tests are done daily"

However there is no source for the above claim and no indication at where it may have come from.

One thing I do notice in the article is: "The proportion of in-person results returned within 24 hours plunged to 33.3%"

Now, the claimed daily testing for Pillars one and two has been floating between 210,000 - 240,000 for the last week or so and I can't help but notice that if you multiply that figure by the percentage mentioned above you end up with (drum roll.......) 70,000 - 80,000.

So is that where the figure comes from? If so do I have to point out how bogus it is to say that if the results aren't returned within 24 hours the test hasn't been done at all?
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Pillar 1 was just under 80,000 on 17/9 (see link to ONS data)

That said, the 24 hour theory could add up. Whichever way you look at it, you’d expect both Fiona Bruce to be better researched and the Tory dude should have had those figures to be able to quote with confidence.

That said, if the host appears so confident, then I suppose you might start to question yourself 😂
 
BFC_BFC_BFC said:
Pillar 1 was just under 80,000 on 17/9 (see link to ONS data)

That said, the 24 hour theory could add up. Whichever way you look at it, you’d expect both Fiona Bruce to be better researched and the Tory dude should have had those figures to be able to quote with confidence.

That said, if the host appears so confident, then I suppose you might start to question yourself 😂
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I’d believe anything Fiona told me to be honest 😍
 
BFC_BFC_BFC said:
Pillar 1 was just under 80,000 on 17/9 (see link to ONS data)
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@TwelveAngryMen has inadvertently given us a little clue on another thread.

If you watch what FB said (just around 13:00 minutes into the programme) she claimed 81,000, which is a very specific number.

If the reference was to pillar one only then why 81,000 and not 79,000, or even better 79,465, and why pick out one particular day when the average for the week is actually much lower?

The use of a round number is suspicious, why use it when exact ones are available?

Going back to my earlier theory, if you multiply 81,000 by 3 you end up with 243,000, which it turns out is almost exactly the latest published P1 & P2 capacity (242,911).

So is that what happened, someone has taken total capacity, assumed that the proportion of tests returned within 24 hours somehow relates to capacity and simply multiplied the two figures.

It seems bizarre, but then I'm reasonably comfortable with maths and statistics and it's surely too much of co-incidence that the figures tie up so closely.


BFC_BFC_BFC said:
Whichever way you look at it, you’d expect both Fiona Bruce to be better researched and the Tory dude should have had those figures to be able to quote with confidence.
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Presumably QT employs researchers to do this sort of thing and the 81,000 figure likely came from one of them, I should imagine that they vary in ability so it's quite possible that this one couldn't tell one number from another and simply screwed things up.

I didn't watch much of the rest but the Conservative did have the figures to hand and did dispute the claim AFAICS.
 
Lost Seasider said:
@TwelveAngryMen has inadvertently given us a little clue on another thread.

If you watch what FB said (just around 13:00 minutes into the programme) she claimed 81,000, which is a very specific number.

If the reference was to pillar one only then why 81,000 and not 79,000, or even better 79,465, and why pick out one particular day when the average for the week is actually much lower?

The use of a round number is suspicious, why use it when exact ones are available?

Going back to my earlier theory, if you multiply 81,000 by 3 you end up with 243,000, which it turns out is almost exactly the latest published P1 & P2 capacity (242,911).

So is that what happened, someone has taken total capacity, assumed that the proportion of tests returned within 24 hours somehow relates to capacity and simply multiplied the two figures.

It seems bizarre, but then I'm reasonably comfortable with maths and statistics and it's surely too much of co-incidence that the figures tie up so closely.




Presumably QT employs researchers to do this sort of thing and the 81,000 figure likely came from one of them, I should imagine that they vary in ability so it's quite possible that this one couldn't tell one number from another and simply screwed things up.

I didn't watch much of the rest but the Conservative did have the figures to hand and did dispute the claim AFAICS.
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If she has used 81,000 then, like you say, that's not going to be 79,465 as it's too specific. It seems plausible that they could have come up with the numbers as you suggest, but it's pretty sloppy stuff (although may have been lost in translation, given the 24 hour thing).

I hate to say this, because the bloke is a caricature tory tosspot, but I found myself agreeing with Rees Mogg yesterday.... To be processing almost 250K tests per day, given where we were, is no mean feat and whilst it is nowhere near sufficient, the circumstances we face are unprecedented.
 
How I read it is that the overall numbers given include repeat tests of which apparently there are loads and new tests. It could well be that both sides are correct.
 
southshorepool said:
How I read it is that the overall numbers given include repeat tests of which apparently there are loads and new tests. It could well be that both sides are correct.
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Possible, but I don't think so.

Firstly, this is supposedly government data, but they don't seem to have published anything like this since May so where has it come from?

Secondly, Mr Hancock was given this figure on Sky and he simply had no idea where it came from, were it some kind of offical government statistic even used out of context one might hope that he would be able to recognise it.

Finally, yes there is lots of repeat testing, care home workers get tested weekly, NHS staff possibly even more often, aparently about 50% of all testing goes on them and other key workers, but unless you think we should'nt be testing healthcare workers there's no logical reason to exclude them from the testing figures.

So until I see something more concrete than "Fiona Bruce said" I'm sticking with my guess that this is simply a screw up by a BBC researcher.
 
Lost Seasider said:
Possible, but I don't think so.

Firstly, this is supposedly government data, but they don't seem to have published anything like this since May so where has it come from?

Secondly, Mr Hancock was given this figure on Sky and he simply had no idea where it came from, were it some kind of offical government statistic even used out of context one might hope that he would be able to recognise it.

Finally, yes there is lots of repeat testing, care home workers get tested weekly, NHS staff possibly even more often, aparently about 50% of all testing goes on them and other key workers, but unless you think we should'nt be testing healthcare workers there's no logical reason to exclude them from the testing figures.

So until I see something more concrete than "Fiona Bruce said" I'm sticking with my guess that this is simply a screw up by a BBC researcher.
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The weekly report from NHS Test and Trace reports that testing capacity in the week to 2 September was just under 2.5 million tests or an average of 357,000 tests a day, with 1.3 million tests actually processed – an average of 190,000 tests per day. The report says that 436,884 people were newly tested for coronavirus in the week, a number which does not include repeat testing of individuals in high contact professions.
 
Interesting points
I recall Louise Minchin pulling the Govt up for quoting 250k tests on Breakfast News on Monday or Tuesday and saying that was capacity not number of tests completed - and the Minister backed down and conceded she was right
Something is amiss as the chaos over bookings doesn't suggest that the system is working anything like as it should
 
southshorepool said:
The weekly report from NHS Test and Trace reports that testing capacity in the week to 2 September was just under 2.5 million tests or an average of 357,000 tests a day, with 1.3 million tests actually processed – an average of 190,000 tests per day. The report says that 436,884 people were newly tested for coronavirus in the week, a number which does not include repeat testing of individuals in high contact professions.
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There's a bit of apples and oranges in some of those figures there, 437k is pillars one and two only, 1.3m is all pillars, for one and two only it is 1,205,928 (assuming my math is right).

So a daily average of 172,000 tests of which 62,000 were new tests and thus 110,000 were key worker repeats, sounds about right for the time, it's before the latest surge so presumably not much demand for symptomatic testing and we know that NHS etc get about half of the testing capacity so that ties up.

None of which really tells us anything about where the 81,000 figure comes from, and if it is anything to do with new tests then it's a hell of a leap from saying that 110,000 tests were performed on healthcare workers to saying that those tests were not performed.
 
TwelveAngryMen said:
Interesting points
I recall Louise Minchin pulling the Govt up for quoting 250k tests on Breakfast News on Monday or Tuesday and saying that was capacity not number of tests completed - and the Minister backed down and conceded she was right
Something is amiss as the chaos over bookings doesn't suggest that the system is working anything like as it should
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In reality, they are pretty much processing the 250K tests, so whether she's right or not, it's not really a particularly valid point... 236K actual vs 242K capacity (Pillar 1&2) would suggest that the difference between tests processed and capacity is negligible.

Pillar 3 testing accounts for a further 6K tests and those are for antibodies, rather than to identify individuals with current Covid-19. Then Pillar 4, which are around 40K tests which are done for surveillance of determining Covid levels in community and other research related.

I'm not sure it's particularly fair for the BBC or anyone else to try to suggest that the fact that multiple tests are being completed on Keyworkers / NHS staff etc..somehow don't count because they are multiple tests on the same person... At the end of the day, the tests still have to be processed and are still vital.

The issue we have, it seems is that the spare capacity for General Public testing needs to be ramped up, which is presumably what the effprt to get us to 500K is all about.
 
Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 are all swab tests (ie nose and throat swabs on each individual). The government count the two swabs as two tests so the figure of 230k (pillar 1/2) tests processed per day is immediately a maximum of 115k individuals. So the number of individuals tested is 115k maximum.
 
bollieboy said:
Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 are all swab tests (ie nose and throat swabs on each individual). The government count the two swabs as two tests so the figure of 230k (pillar 1/2) tests processed per day is immediately a maximum of 115k individuals. So the number of individuals tested is 115k maximum.
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Wow, I didn’t know that. Talk about inflating numbers to suit, it’s appalling.
 
bollieboy said:
Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 are all swab tests (ie nose and throat swabs on each individual). The government count the two swabs as two tests so the figure of 230k (pillar 1/2) tests processed per day is immediately a maximum of 115k individuals. So the number of individuals tested is 115k maximum.
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They use the same test for both the nose and throat sample. It doesn’t require 2 tests per person.
 
BFC_BFC_BFC said:
You didn’t know it because it’s not true.
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And for the sake of completeness, here's the link to prove that: https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...dology/covid-19-testing-data-methodology-note

All tests in pillar 1 are counted at the point they are processed by a lab. Nose and throat swabs are counted together as one sample .................. As in pillar 1, pillar 2 nose and throat swabs are counted together as one sample.

Tests sent to individuals at home or to satellite testing locations
These are counted when tests are dispatched and not at the time of processing in the laboratory. Tests are never double-counted.
 
bollieboy said:
Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 are all swab tests (ie nose and throat swabs on each individual). The government count the two swabs as two tests so the figure of 230k (pillar 1/2) tests processed per day is immediately a maximum of 115k individuals. So the number of individuals tested is 115k maximum.
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Stop talking bollox and making me look stupid for believing you.
 
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cruzzer said:
Stop talking bollox and making me look stupid for believing you.
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Better still, don't believe anything and check it for yourself.

Alone you will achieve little, establish this as a principle and you are more powerful than god (thunder and flooding excepted obviously).
 
We have a fact check on this: https://fullfact.org/health/question-time-testing-figures/

Apparently the 81,000 is in fact people newly tested: https://assets.publishing.service.g...ile/918615/test-and-trace-week-15.pdf#page=37

571,400 in the week to 9 September is 81,628 per day, so broadly in line with the claim.

Personally I'm not convinced:
  • firstly, 81,628 is 82,000, not 81,000, a small point but potentially significant;
  • secondly, the claim seems to closely mirror claims made in, erm, the Mirror that can't be explained by this;
either way, the number is total bollox.
 
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