Tom Chivers

Tom Chivers is a science writer. His second book, How to Read Numbers, is out now.

@TomChivers

Is a vaccine trade war brewing?

27 Jan 2021

Latest infections data may be less gloomy than the headlines Gaps in the data mean that infections could have declined from the peak

21 Jan 2021

What Covid tests can we trust?

20 Jan 2021

What explains the Germany Covid surge? Infection rates are soaring at a rate far higher than in the first wave

14 Jan 2021

Will schools be open by summer?

13 Jan 2021

Amid Covid crisis we can’t wait for perfect data

06 Jan 2021

Boris Johnson fails the marshmallow test Time and again, this government fails to take action when needed

04 Jan 2021

What’s the real cost of sending kids back to school? With days to go, the government needs to come clean on their reasoning

30 Dec 2020

The nerds who saw the dangers of Covid

30 Dec 2020

Did anyone predict coronavirus?

28 Dec 2020

How dangerous is the Covid mutation?

21 Dec 2020

Unconscious Bias Training is an empty PR drill It doesn’t improve outcomes for the people it’s supposed to help

16 Dec 2020

The perils of liberals politicising science

15 Dec 2020

Your Christmas gifts are worth less than you think People are less good at buying things for other people than for themselves

11 Dec 2020

How the mob can silence you

08 Dec 2020

Healthcare workers will be the first piece of the vaccine jigsaw Doctors and nurses will get priority, but everyone will feel the benefits

03 Dec 2020

DeepMind’s superhuman intelligence

01 Dec 2020

I am utterly confused about the Oxford vaccine There are many questions about the trial left unanswered

26 Nov 2020

Why the Oxford vaccine is different

24 Nov 2020

Why we should be confident in the Oxford vaccine Results released this morning are promising

19 Nov 2020

Should Big Pharma profit from Covid?

17 Nov 2020

Are we overly worried about anti-vaxxers? Misinformation about the new vaccine won't be a barrier to success

12 Nov 2020

Yes, the vaccine is really on its way

10 Nov 2020

What’s your vote really worth?

03 Nov 2020

The real reason flu cases are falling There is a very simple explanation

30 Oct 2020

It pays to believe obviously untrue things

28 Oct 2020

Maybe the US travel ban wasn’t stupid On closing the borders, the President's instincts may have been right

23 Oct 2020

Will a vaccine stop Covid?

21 Oct 2020

Will this new ‘lockdown’ make any difference? I worry that further restrictions will be required

15 Oct 2020

The German coronavirus mystery

14 Oct 2020

Did the Government waste £161m in Moonshot money?

08 Oct 2020

Why does Trump get to choose if Regeneron works? Little is known about the experimental drug being taken by the President

03 Oct 2020

Vitamin D is no silver bullet A new study claims that it cuts Covid deaths by half, which seems far-fetched

02 Oct 2020

Has Covid become less dangerous?

30 Sep 2020

How risky are the human challenge trials? It may make sense from a utilitarian point of view, but it is ethically dubious

24 Sep 2020

Is this the second wave?

22 Sep 2020

If your child has the sniffles, is it Covid or a cold? The symptoms for each virus are almost indistinguishable

17 Sep 2020

Why everyone is stupid except me

16 Sep 2020

The paranoid style in vaccine science The Oxford trial was halted, but that does not mean that the vaccine is unsafe

11 Sep 2020

Why a little knowledge is a dangerous thing

09 Sep 2020

Let’s all meet up in the year 3000

02 Sep 2020

A lesson in statistics… for the FDA Even numerate people make mistakes — and mislead without meaning to

27 Aug 2020

Why is middle age so depressing?

26 Aug 2020

Jeremy Farrar is right: axing Public Health England is foolish When the director of the Wellcome Trust speaks out, people should listen

19 Aug 2020

What worms can teach us about the AI apocalypse

19 Aug 2020

Will there be a second wave of coronavirus? Even in the worst-hit areas in the UK, the actual numbers are still fairly small

07 Aug 2020

Why your negative antibody test might be wrong

04 Aug 2020

From Covid to crime: how media hype distorts risk

28 Jul 2020

Covid could become the new common cold

21 Jul 2020

Forget Mars, why aren’t we going to Titan? Exploring Saturn's moon would be a far more interesting venture...

16 Jul 2020

Is there really a Covid mental health crisis?

14 Jul 2020

Finally! A way to analyse NHS data from 17 million people A new paper from Ben Goldacre takes advantage of our centralised health system

09 Jul 2020

Can you really teach kids not to be racist?

07 Jul 2020

I’m on the Oxford vaccine trial — here’s what it’s like For the next year, I'll be sticking a swab up my nose every week...

02 Jul 2020

The nerd’s guide to football

30 Jun 2020

Slate Star Codex must remain anonymous

24 Jun 2020

We all need a Devil to play Advocate

23 Jun 2020

Doctors’ orders: Re-open the schools! The societal costs are mounting and the risks are low

18 Jun 2020

What’s the point of contact tracing?

16 Jun 2020

Why is the Government U-turning on masks? It comes down to a question of evidence

12 Jun 2020

Will the BLM protests cause a Covid spike?

09 Jun 2020

Did Dominic Cummings cause a lockdown breakdown? There are a couple of problems with this hypothesis

03 Jun 2020

Will there be a second Covid wave?

02 Jun 2020

Another day, another misleading Corona study! A 'correlation' is not quite what it seems...

29 May 2020

Do any Covid-19 ‘cures’ actually work?

26 May 2020

How much difference would an earlier shutdown have made? There are some wildly overconfident claims going around

21 May 2020

Is it safe to reopen schools?

19 May 2020

Does remdesivir treat Covid-19? The drug got FDA approval earlier this month

14 May 2020

We should be very wary of the R value

12 May 2020

I told you so! 100,000 tests was a foolish target A classic case of Goodhart's Law...

06 May 2020

Is the lockdown doing more harm than good?

05 May 2020

Stop obsessing over the 100,000 test target The Government should never have mentioned this arbitrary goal

30 Apr 2020

When will we get the Covid-19 vaccine?

28 Apr 2020

Beware of Covid confimation bias The pandemic has unleashed a torrent of conflicting evidence

23 Apr 2020

Did anyone predict coronavirus?

22 Apr 2020

Why did the New York Times bury its own Covid story? A leaked PowerPoint slide indicates that corona infection fatality rate is lower than estimated

16 Apr 2020

Don’t put too much faith in Covid-19 metrics

14 Apr 2020

Beware unchecked scientific theories about Covid Due to these strange times, the scientific community is putting out unverified hypotheses at double rate

09 Apr 2020

How far away are ‘immunity passports’?

07 Apr 2020

A glimpse inside a virus-testing laboratory My correspondent reveals some surprisingly mundane sources of delay

02 Apr 2020

How likely are you to die of coronavirus?

01 Apr 2020

Half the country infected? I doubt it If a scientific finding is interesting, it's probably not true

25 Mar 2020

Would you take a coronavirus risk?

24 Mar 2020

How does the UK compare to the rest of the world on handling Covid-19? In general, we have a tendency to look at the wrong things

20 Mar 2020

Self-isolation is feeding my Warhammer addiction

17 Mar 2020

Can we build a herd immunity to Covid-19? The idea put forward by the Chief Scientist comes down to a simple formula

13 Mar 2020

Memo to Donald Trump: travel bans don’t work Travel bans aren't a good way to stop, or even stem, pandemics

12 Mar 2020

Coronavirus is the wake-up call we need

10 Mar 2020

What are the odds a sneeze will give you coronavirus? Let me offer a ballpark estimate...

05 Mar 2020

In praise of uncynical children’s books

05 Mar 2020

Stop looking for coronavirus ‘super-spreaders’

03 Mar 2020

Does the BBC know astrology isn’t real? A bizarre segment on 'Mercury in retrograde' lacked any mention of the underlying science

28 Feb 2020

Are economists really this stupid?

26 Feb 2020

Time for big tech to share data about themselves They know a lot more than we do about screen addiction and mental wellbeing

19 Feb 2020

‘Eugenics is possible’ is not the same as ‘eugenics is good’

18 Feb 2020

Got to hand it to him, Boris is good on cycling The PM's cycle plans are the sort of thing that small-c conservatives should welcome

12 Feb 2020

How daughters turn fathers into feminists

11 Feb 2020

Geek tip: if it doesn’t say “Registered Report,” don’t trust it A new study shows how effective the academic system to avoid bias really is

06 Feb 2020

Are mental health apps totally useless?

05 Feb 2020