I think this high level of certainty is basically just the governments way of acknowledging they are terrible at gathering/defining useful metrics and so with a

I think this high level of certainty is basically just the governments way of acknowledging they are terrible at gathering/defining useful metrics and so with a wide margin there's very little room for error on the politicians part. I'm unsure if this is overly cynical, but I don't expect politicians today became career politicians by worrying about safety more than protecting their political status. Further, I suspect media would look for any definition possible to blame politicians for deaths so politicians feel it necessary to be blameless before allowing interesting, progressive ideas to materialize.