Communicating Covid Statistics to the Media: Some Highs and Lows - Sir David Spiegelhalter

DCEG Committee of Scientists Seminar

October 14, 2021 | 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM

Online via Zoom

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Speaker

Sir David Spiegelhalter
Retired Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk,
Fellow of Churchill College, and
Chairman of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at Cambridge University.

“The current epidemic is notable for the vast traffic in official and unofficial information and claims, and this has brought unprecedented demands for commentary from ‘experts’. Among many others, I have tried to contribute by providing multiple interviews for radio and TV, writing articles and blogs, feeding Twitter, producing with Anthony Masters a weekly column on Covid statistics for a major Sunday newspaper, and now writing a book.  

I will offer some personal insights into the challenges of trying to bring some illumination to the statistics about the pandemic, illustrated with some examples of things have gone fairly well, as well as communication disasters. In particular, I shall focus on the challenges of combatting the constant pressure to speculate, blame, recommend policies, and go outside one’s area of expertise.”

Host

Mark Little, D.Phil.
Senior investigator, Radiation Epidemiology Branch, DCEG

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Meeting ID: 161 218 6097