So frustrating to see that "England's Covid-19 rate is increasing because more tests are being done" piece go viral over the weekend and this morning. It's a decent piece, and we've had months to stop it by publishing the local authority testing rate, but we failed. :(

Failing to publish testing counts at small geographies (as I say often, Italy and France and Germany have done this for months) has caused problems right from the start. And now causes even more problems. So much effort and worry and debate for no benefit at all. :(

2 April. 4 months ago. It was already causing problems then. It's still not fixed. What an embarrassment for the UK's digital and data people. People like me. I'm sorry. https://twitter.com/thomasforth/status/1245646111810805761?s=20

That instinct captured in the quote in Helen's first piece - to fix the misinterpretation by either turning off the data or telling people it's complex and they can't understand it - has dominated England's Covid-19 response on digital and data. We could have been so much better.

Two of Great Britain's nations have long managed to share this data. I suggest that there is a link between this (though not necessarily a direct one) and the far higher approval ratings in those devolved administrations than in the UK government.

I think it's important, though uncomfortable to discuss, to note that the Welsh and Scottish dashboards are on slower less accessible web pages powered by proprietary software. While the UK dashboard is fast accessible and open source. Perhaps it is a bit "either/or"?