*damning* towards the end about the "number theatre" of the government's press conferences: "completely embarrassing; we're told lots of big … precise numbers, actually not trustworthy communication of statistics"

This BEFORE the "R + No. of infections = threat level" debacle… https://twitter.com/TimandraHarknes/status/1259574238597570560

I really do not envy the government, or anyone having to make decisions in all this, and I suspect that the response has been less dreadful than many think; but the attempts to communicate the uncertainty, and trust the public to understand that uncertainty, have been woeful

this is a fair point; the "equation" is clearly meant to imply that the R and the number of infections will be used in combination to determine the threat level, and I'm pretending to assume it's a real equation, which no one sensible will do. It just annoyed me. https://twitter.com/MarcusMunafo/status/1259763583837179910

oh no, this is turning into a thread, but:

funnily enough, tune into Radio 4, June 12 at 11am! For (among other people) Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, of top-of-this-thread fame, talking to me about uncertainty! https://twitter.com/TimandraHarknes/status/1259764067683774464

anyway. To conclude this accidental megathread, my experience from years of writing "actually it's more complicated than that & we don't know anything" pieces has been that people are pretty comfortable with uncertainty if you talk them through it. Maybe they could give it a try