PRIME minister Boris Johnson says he is following the science on coronavirus.

Florence Nightingale was a statistician.

During the Crimean War she and her team found that poor care for wounded soldiers was being delivered by overworked medical staff in the face of official indifference.

Medicines were in short supply, hygiene was being neglected, and mass infections were common, many of them fatal.

There was no equipment to process food for the patients.

Nightingale made improvements in hygiene herself and called upon the Sanitary Commission for assistance.

She implemented handwashing and other hygiene practices.

As a pioneer in data visualization with the use of infographics,effectively using graphical presentations of statistical data, her reports got back to Britain about the horrific conditions for the wounded and the British Government commissioned Isambard Kingdom Brunel to design a prefabricated hospital that could be built in England and shipped to the Dardanelles.

The result was a civilian facility called Renkioi Hospital.

This was operated under the management of Dr Edmund Alexander Parkes.

Nightingale and her team reduced the death rate in this hospital from 42 per cent to two per cent.

The science followed the data and the data followed clear messaging and leadership.

So my question is, what science is Boris Johnson and his government following?

TONY FOX

Stockton Heath