COVID inquiry heard Boris Johnson 'struggled' with graphs – if you do too, here are some tips

By James Cheshire, Professor of Geographic Information and Cartography, UCL
Rob Davidson, Postgraduate Researcher in Human Geography, UCL

In March 2020, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, presented to the nation a graph showing “the shape of an epidemic”. The red line depicting the number of predicted COVID cases rose to a steep peak before falling again. Vallance explained that delaying and reducing the height of that peak was essential to ease the strain on Britain’s healthcare system. Boris Johnson, then prime minister, put it much more succinctly: “Squash that sombrero.”

In the two years that followed, both men must have…

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