IF we have learnt one thing by this stage in the coronavirus pandemic, it's that you almost certainly can't trust the figures.

The UK's death toll rocketed overnight this month when the Office for National Statistics published its own figures including deaths at care homes, and all stats for the number of cases are only based on testing which, as we now know, has been woefully poor in this country so far.

So when Oxfordshire Safeguarding Adults Board says it has seen no increase in notifications of deaths of people with learning disabilities in the county in the first four months of 2020 (see page 1 today), that's about as useful as you'd expect.

That's not to place any blame on the safeguarding board – they are playing catch-up like all authorities, and the simple truth is that in any rapidly-developing crisis like this we simply won't have useful, authoritative figures for a long time yet.

However, when Oxfordshire's fantastic local campaign group My Life My Choice raise their fear that adults with learning disabilities in care centres face just the same risk as the elderly in those cramped environments, it is hard to ignore.

For all of our sakes, lets hope their fears are unfounded.