Quants and Current Events

Statistics and data often appear in the news. Here you will find some of our favourite articles.

Understanding Statistics

• Our Nine-Point Guide to Spotting a Dodgy Statistic (David Spiegelhalter, The Observer)

• Without Learning to Think Statistically, We'll Never Know When People Are Bending the Truth (Paul Goodwin, The Guardian)

• Statistical Literacy Isn't a Niche Problem. During a Pandemic It Can Be Fatal (Carlo Rovelli, The Guardian)

• How to Call B.S. on Big Data: A Practical Guide (Michelle Nijhuis, The New Yorker)

Understanding Data Science

• The Ultimate Data Scientist Cheat Sheet (John Vastola, Medium gitconnected)

COVID-19

• How Precision and Recall Affect the Anti-COVID Measures (James Ho, Towards Data Science)

• What Open Data can tell you about COVID-19 in Southeast Asia (Besides Number of Cases) (Hua Deng, Towards Data Science)

• The Government's COVID-19 Winter Plan focusses on vaccinations and testing (laboratory-based and lateral flow). By now you may have already taken one (or more) COVID test and you may have even already received your first vaccine dose! Click on the following links to learn more about the three vaccines approved for use in the U.K. and about rapid lateral flow tests, their uses, benefits and limitations 

Events / Happenings

• The 2021 Census is taking place now (March 21, 2021)! This is a great chance to contribute important data and gain a better understanding of quantitative data collection. You can participate here (If you want to learn some fun facts about the census see BBC's Census 2021: Eight Things You Need to Know). Update: the ONS have published findings from Census 2021 -- browse them here!

• Sutton Trust's new longitudinal study, The Covid Social Mobility and Opportunities Study (COSMO), will track 12,000 year 11 students in order to understand their experiences of the pandemic. The study will commence in autumn, 2021 and results will be published in 2022. Update: Wave 1 of the COSMO study have been published!

• UCL has announced The Children of the 2020s cohort study. This study will follow the development of babies born in April, May, and June of 2021 for a period of five years. Recruitment will take place in early 2022