What they say counts. And rarely more so than during a pandemic.

Statisticians have been unambiguously and visibly frontline since Covid took hold last year. Suddenly, and thankfully, number crunchers are box office.

Two of the trade’s most eminent representatives made it on to the flagship current affairs Sunday morning programmes – with analysis that cut right through political rhetoric.

First up was Professor Sir Ian Diamond, head of Britain’s independent Office of National Statistics or ONS. Or, the “chief stato” as he was introduced by the eponymous host of Sky News’ Trevor Phillips On Sunday.

Sir Ian came bearing good news and bad. The good news was that Britons may be increasingly immune to Covid. Or, more accurately, most people have antibodies to fight the disease – though that, of course, is no guarantee they will not get it.

“I think, with regard to antibodies we are doing very, very well,” Sir Ian said. “I have to say that antibodies aren’t a perfect protection, but at the same time, we’re saying very clearly that we think that about nine in 10 people in England, in Wales and in Northern Ireland, and about eight in 10 in Scotland, do have antibodies at the moment, and let’s be fair, that’s up from two in 10 in January, so I think that is an enormous increase.”

Scotland has similar rates of vaccinations levels to the rest of the UK. So the lower level of antibodies suggests parts of the population have still to be exposed to the illness – offering a potential explanation for recent rises in cases among the young and unvaccinated.

The bad news was that more people are getting Covid. Sir Ian has already called the current increase in infections a third wave of disease. So, too, have other statisticians, clinicians and public health officials.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid has said as many as 100,000 people a day could catch Covid over the summer.

The UK Government is ploughing ahead with its plans for a freedom day on July 19 – with the Scottish Government planning its own less dramatic reductions in restrictions at the same time. Why? Because inflections are not leading to so many hospitalisations as they did in the first two waves. Prime Minister Boris Johnson last week even told the House of Commons that the link between infections and hospitalisations had been “severed”. Well, he was wrong. Or, at least, that is what the ever diplomatic Sir Ian suggested.

“We have a younger cohort of people being hospitalised at the moment and while hospitalisations are going up, they are now a long way from some of the levels we have seen before,” he told Mr Phillips.

“And so I’m very hopeful that we have really made a strong break, but at the same time, I would have to say at the moment all the evidence allows me to say severely weakened.”

So not severed, not yet.

Flicking over to the BBC another top statistician, Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, was making the same point.

Sir David told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “Frankly, you know, unless tomorrow an immediate lockdown is announced – which I think is pretty unlikely – there’s bound to be a big wave of cases coming up, absolutely inevitable.

“Of course it’s been made worse by the Delta variant. And I would guess that, you know, 100,000 a day is quite possible, and relaxing everything at once on July 19 will only make that more likely.”

Sir David does not think thelink between infections and hospitalisations is severed either. But he made clear that those who do end up in hospital are going to be younger, and that their stays will be shorter. But there is still a risk.

Speaking to Mr Marr – who has caught Covid twice – he stressed that vaccinations were not a complete protection. “An unvaxxed 30-year-old has less risk of dying than a vaxxed 65-year-old,” he said.

The statistician was not going to be drawn too much on policy: “I don’t like telling people what to do,” he said. But the numbers, he suggested, say getting the jab saves your life – and those of others.

There have been clear signs that ministers in England are slightly changing their tunes on masks after July 19. Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi was grilled by both Mr Phillips and Mr Marr about the Prime Minister’s loose language on the link between inflections and hospitalisations – and the stance on masks.

Ducking, Mr Zahawi stuck by office advice that the third wave will put people in hospital, just not as many, and pivoted to support mask-wearing after July 19.

He told Mr Marr: “The guidelines will be very clear on things like mask-wearing. There’s an expectation of people to wear masks indoors, in crowded places, on public transport.”

An expectation, of course, is not a law; a “should” is not a “must”.

The vaccine roll-out has slowed down. These were the “hard yards”

Mr Zahawi kept repeating, before, with a cheesy grin, trying to inspire the “spirit of Gareth Southgate” to get the country jabbed.

The statisticians, inevitably, were asked for their predictions about the Euros final and were suitably cagey – confidence has a different meaning for them.

But Sir Ian and Sir David had done their job. Quietly, and carefully, they had shown the politicians that they have got their number.