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How deadly is Covid 19?
Tim Harford explores what we know about mortality rates in the current pandemic. We discuss the differences between the risks to different age groups, and why that has an effect on a country’s Covid …
Published on 5 years, 1 month ago
Asymptomatic Covid19 Cases
A headline in a British tabloid newspaper claimed that ‘Staggering 86% who tested Covid positive in lockdown had NONE of the official symptoms’ but what does this mean and is it true?
Published on 5 years, 2 months ago
US election: facts or fiction
Tim Harford hears about the sheer volume of false claims made during the campaign. President Trump is well known for making wild statements, but has his behaviour changed? And what about Joe Biden? S…
Published on 5 years, 2 months ago
Auction Theory - Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson
Paul Milgrom and his former tutor Robert Wilson worked together for years developing ways to run complicated auctions for large resources. This month the two Stanford University professors were award…
Published on 5 years, 2 months ago
A short history of probability
Tim Harford speaks to Jacob Goldstein about the unholy marriage of mathematicians, gamblers, and actuaries at the dawn of modern finance.
Published on 5 years, 2 months ago
Spreadsheet snafu, ‘Long Covid’ quantified, and the birth of probability
After nearly 16,000 cases disappeared off coronaviruses spreadsheets, we ask what went wrong. How common are lasting symptoms from Covid-19? If you survey people about the death toll from Covid, they…
Published on 5 years, 2 months ago
“Record” Covid cases, Trump on the death count, and ant pheromones
Case counts in perspective, a suspect stat from the US, and life lessons from insects.
Published on 5 years, 3 months ago
Covid curve queried, false positives, and the Queen’s head
A scary government graph this week showed what would happen if coronavirus cases doubled every seven days. But is that what’s happening? There’s much confusion about how many Covid test results are f…
Published on 5 years, 3 months ago
The magical maths of pool testing
Tim Harford speaks to Israeli researcher, Tomer Hertz, about how the mathematical magic of pool testing could help countries to ramp up their Covid-19 testing capacity.
Published on 5 years, 3 months ago
Covid testing capacity, refugee numbers, and mascara
Amid reports of problems with coronavirus testing across the UK, we interrogate the numbers on laboratory capacity. Does the government’s Operation Moonshot plan for mass testing make statistical sen…
Published on 5 years, 3 months ago