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So we've gone from 1000 to 71 per day since Saturday. UK stats must be flakier than Iran's. 

Wales isn't the whole of the UK though.

Oh, the head of the Academy Trust has emailed us all. Looks like a rota on the way for teaching staff, but I'd imagine us support staff will be left out. (Apparently they sent all the rank-and-file teachers home at 10:30 this morning, but support staf have to stay all day... so you get a school with a few members of SLT running classes, with a dozen or more support staff sitting in offices.)

I am writing to you directly to thank you for all of your hard work and dedication to the children we are responsible for over this very difficult and challenging times. Many of you have health concerns of your own, and for your families, and this is rightly going to be in the forefront of your minds.

As a Trust we have a responsibility to keep our schools open for students who are vulnerable and for the children of key workers. This offer however is as a last resort. We need to manage this provision in a way which recognises that we have a significant number of vulnerable staff within our own ranks for whom it is not appropriate to attend school during this time.

Today has seen far fewer students attend school than we believed to be likely the case over the weekend. There may well be some more children who do arrive, but it appears that we will be receiving less than 10% of our total number on roll.

In light of this, I have asked all Heads to produce a rota for staff to attend school and provide for those children who are with us over coming weeks until this crisis is at an end. I am asking each of you to notify your head teacher directly if you fall within the category of vulnerable staff, and if so you will be removed from any rota and be expected to work from home instead, subject to your own health needs.

These are challenging times and as an employer we will do whatever practically we can to ensure that no member of staff is placed in harm’s way.

I'm not expecting a big increase if I'm honest 

I am, assuming we're talking about deaths (which is the stat that matters, given how useless our testing is).

I'd expect today's total to be at least 20% up on yesterday's for example, if not more.

This will go on for at least 2 weeks, given the somewhat lacklustre distancing which is taking place even now.

Our testing has been very irratitic and it’s very hard to determine where we stand.

Sceptical me

But I see the Government being creative with numbers to avoid mass panic 

expecting around 50 again , seems to be an accepted figure ( ish ) 

HW - yes its been bloody rubbish considering the situation we find ourselves in

This has echoes of the Bubonic Plague - India has started putting stickers on the doors of those self isolating because it is thought they have the virus:

Indian official stats are as dodgy as those from Iran and China - to get a true picture of the cases in India, it would be necessary to count the doors with red stickers on them as per the above image.

In case you cannot read it, it states "Please Do Not Visit - Home Under Quarantine" with start and end dates, plus the number of infected persons (3 in the above example).

You keep saying this about various countries without providing any evidence. Why is China's data dodgy?

What has he done now?

Agreed. I think if my friend's experience is anything to go by, Covid-19 figures are only reflecting the prevalence of serious cases (and their immediate contacts) which make up between 5% and 20% of the total because those are the only ones who are getting tested. It does suggest that the real rate of infection is between 5 and 20 times larger than shown in the official figures.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, I consider that to be good news because the overwhelming majority of cases do not require hospitalisation or any treatment beyond paracetamol and bed rest.

Looks legit to me - it mentions Delhi on the bottom of the sign.

Remember, English is an official language of India, as is their native Hindi.

Come on Xioni - given the size of their population and the size of their response, are we really supposed to believe that only 80K confirmed positive or their official death rate?

Complete nuts.

None of the official stats are anything like representative of the true picture. The one country which is perhaps most credible on this score, is South Korea, because of the level of testing done, the contact tracing done and the transparency of their results.

Overnight Tweet storm. He's planning on removing all restrictions in less than 2 weeks. 

It is genuine alright - being reported by several reputable media outlets.

So after taking such extreme and draconian measures, why would they lie now and lift the Wuhan lockdown?

Their data reporting seems more stable and more informative than ours!

I am not saying they have not made huge strides in containing the original outbreak. I am questioning their official statistics in every which way.