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The Express leads with the minute's silence for NHS workers who've died of COVID-19 that was observed at 11am this morning and the fact that the families of front line NHS and social care staff in England who've died will receive £60,000 in compensation, which was announced by Matt Hancock at the Downing Street press briefing yesterday. Any death from the virus is tragic, and I can see the argument for compensating the families of workers who succumb to COVID-19 after putting themselves in harm's way. But why NHS and social care staff and not, say, bus drivers? Or supermarket workers? Or the owners of corner shops that have remained open during the crisis? Or postmen and milkmen? Is it because NHS workers are more likely to die from COVID-19 than other members of the working population? As readers will recall, I crunched the numbers on that last week with the help of Guy de la Bédoyère, a reader with a background in statistics, and concluded that, on the face of it, NHS workers are no more likely to die than other workers. I asked Guy to look at the numbers again to see if that's still true. Understanding the impact of COVID-19 on NHS workers is bedevilled by a number of unknowns. The constant blurring in the media of ...
