Pandemic En Croûte – another slice

Something a little special for independence day: using generalised linear modelling to reveal just how flaky the pastry is (rev 1.0)

I hope subscribers are enjoying this dish on this most auspicious of days. The eagle-eyed will have noticed I started my modelling run at 16 Sep 2020 rather than at the onset of the pandemic back in Mar 2020. This is because I wanted to highlight the impact of lateral flow devices that became available during Sep 2020. The best way to generate the illusion of a pandemic is to ensure members of the public poke their nose as often as possible and to get them to tune in to sober news bulletins at breakfast: there’s something about a smart suit, blue tie and posh accent.

What I’ve done while the kettle boils is to run my model for the period 12 Mar 2020 – 15 Sep 2020 but omit the independent variable for rolling 7-day LFD tests. Here’s what popped out a few moments ago:

The Pearson bivariate correlation for this fetches up at a rather sexy  r = 0.984 (p<0.001, n=188), which means variation in the amount of testing and number of people tested using PCR accounts for  96.8% of the variation in…