There's a wide spectrum from "outright hoax" to "very slightly exaggerated" (which is the point where I sit on this subject), but it all tends to get lumped tog

There's a wide spectrum from "outright hoax" to "very slightly exaggerated" (which is the point where I sit on this subject), but it all tends to get lumped together and criticised as one. I've always said I'm sure any politics university course must be based on the art of exaggeration. It's just what politicians do, so there's no way this one subject could be the sole one where they didn't. To make any point, they'll cherry-pick the least reliable studies, make examples of the outliers to imply they're the norm, use statistical obfuscation, etc. Graphs in the news were blatant - taking a line graph that was fluctuating up and down, and extrapolating by continuing the last tiny upward movement into a long straight line upwards, entirely ignoring the story the graph was really telling us. Misclassifying at least some flu deaths as Covid (due to the way symptoms were diagnosed at speed by a single doctor each time, all need for checking removed) appears to have been one way the figures were at least slightly inflated. It was clear throughout how politicians were determined to find the data to confirm the initial predictions. Slight exaggeration is far removed from "hoax", but is still a bad thing for anyone who's like to know the real figures.