One of the first lessons I was taught at public health school was that “statistics are the numbers that clever people use to tell the story they want to tell”. We were then drilled to scrutinise case definitions, denominators and confidence intervals, before arriving at our own conclusions. These lessons continue to serve me well... » read more
SINGAPORE – The use of the Greek alphabet to name Covid-19 variants was done after the consideration of other possibilities, such as numbering them “VOC 1”, a shorthand for “variant of concern 1”. This option was thrown out as “VOC” sounded like a swear word when verbalised, Professor Dale Fisher, chairman of the World Health... » read more
SINGAPORE – The two vaccines Singapore is using will protect significantly, but not absolutely, against all current variants of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, say experts. To what extent, however, is where they do not agree. The Ministry of Health said last week that all three Covid-19 variants of concern (VOCs) – strains that could... » read more