Statistics in times of increasing uncertainty

Abstract

The statistical community mobilised vigorously from the start of the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, following the RSS's long tradition of offering our expertise to help society tackle important issues that require evidence-based decisions. This address aims to capture the highlights of our collective engagement in the pandemic, and the difficulties faced in delivering statistical design and analysis at pace and in communicating to the wider public the many complex issues that arose. I argue that these challenges gave impetus to fruitful new directions in the merging of statistical principles with constraints of agility, responsiveness and societal responsibilities. The lessons learned from this will strengthen the long-term impact of the discipline and of the Society. The need to evaluate policies even in emergency, and to strive for statistical interoperability in future disease surveillance systems is highlighted. In my final remarks, I look towards the future landscape for statistics in the fast-moving world of data science and outline a strategy of visible and growing engagement of the RSS with the data science ecosystem, building on the central position of statistics.