BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

Hello and welcome to a brand new series of more or less.

We're your weekly shot of statistical salvation that leaves you 90% less likely to be caught

out by dubious data and I'm Tim Harford.

This week did anything happen while we were off air?

Oh, fiddlesticks.

Fine, I'll have a quick statistical catch up.

The new vaccine regime is to delay the booster shot for up to three months, but is the first

shot 52% effective or 90% effective?

We might have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for that pesky new virus variant.

It's 70% more transmissible apparently, but what does that mean?

And one of our youngest loyal listeners has a question about her class register.

But first, you don't need to look at the numbers to know things are bad.

The kids are all off school, Joe Wix is live streaming burpees, and most terrifyingly

of all, my producer Kate Lambel is back on more or less.

Hello.

Kate, you made more or less throughout the first wave of the pandemic and now you're

back and we're in national lockdown once again and I have to say it seems like rather

too much of a coincidence.

But look, how does the situation now compare to the situation back then?

Yes, so for more than 10 months now, we've had this constant stream of the numbers of

COVID cases and deaths in the headlines and sometimes it can be quite hard to step back

...