A confusing trend has now taken hold of reporting the epidemic. All the announcements and reports now talk about cases of Covid 19. This is inaccurate and misleading and has been used by conspiracy theory websites and Covid-deniers as a way to underplay the seriousness of the pandemic. What should be reported daily is the number of individuals who have a positive test for SARS cov2 as many of those, who are asymptomatic or who have very mild symptoms, do not have Covid-19, the disease. This is an extremely important distinction as, with an increased number of tests rolled out into the community, there will be a larger number tested and a fewer number who are ill. It would also be useful to report the daily number of hospital admissions that are Covid-19 related and also the number of deaths related to the disease and these will be more helpful in strategic planning.