Official Numbers — bah!

In my county (or some county, at least) there is a regular email that goes out reporting on the local status of COVID. Here’s a section of the heart of the latest (as I write this) report:

* There were 27 new COVID-19 cases reported Wednesday and 
Thursday for a total of 48 cases in November [2021] and 3,357 overall.
* 4 people are in [local] Hospitals this morning, 2 
are in the ICU.
* The [...] Health Authority continues to audit vital 
records. This audit found two more people had died in [this] 
County with COVID-19, bringing our total to 45

First of all, I feel pretty strongly that such regular (daily!) reporting serves no useful purpose among the general population, except to excite fear, panic and adrenalin-addiction. Even properly reported, most people can’t actually understand these sorts of reports without a little guidance, “post game wrap up” sort of thing.

This report is inflammatory, while failing to report anything actually useful. Let me point out why:

1. Are those 27 cases clinically proven diagnoses? Or were they over-the-phone diagnoses. (I had a local virologist pinned for a couple hours just last week (he will remain anonymous here) and we discussed the situation in quite some detail. Among other things, he admitted that an unknown but not insignificant number of “diagnoses” go like this: patient calls in, still on the phone, doctor asks for symptoms, patient gives them, doctor says “you have covid” — bah!)
2. Given that it’s still early in November we can assume that the 48 cases are active (though it is an assumption having to be made), but how many are symptomatic? Have those cases been quarantined? How many were vaccinated? Were they vanilla COVID or one of the variants? Which variants?
3.  Out of 48 cases, 4 are in hospital. Ok… that’s 10% and it’s WAY above average for hospitalization from COVID (which is 2.5% for unvaccinated(1), and 0.1% for vaccinated). So… do they have underlying conditions? Are they elderly? Are they unusually at risk? If they are not at higher risk, then this is a VERY alarming number, but I strongly suspect (as it’s almost universal with COVID) that these poor folks had preexisting conditions around heart and/or lungs. It would be reassuring / calming (rather than adrenalin-addicting) to say so, and it would be far better reporting. (You know? Actual reporting?) But that I have to “suspect” what this actually means is a perfect demonstration all in itself as to what’s wrong with this so-called report.
4. “… and 3,357 overall.” Over what time frame? Are those active cases? Total since the panic (excuse, pandemic) began? Total this year? Total hip-shot-diagnoses? What? Without some qualifier on it, it is a completely meaningless number, but for a county this size it is a high number and as such can do little among the average readers except cause worry and adrenalin-addiction and fear-of-each-other, which does much damage all on its own.
5. What’s the margin of error on the 3,357 number? All the experts (doctors I’ve spoken to, nurses working the COVID, that virologist whom I spoke with at length last week) all agree that the reported numbers are artificially elevated — not deliberately (perhaps) but by collisions between science and legislation, and between varying levels of education. What is the margin of error? Without that, that number is absolutely worthless.
6. “The audit found two more people had died … with COVID” ok. What was the originally stated cause of death? Was it COVID? Or is it simply that the corpse tested positive? How is it that “auditing” discovered this? What does that even mean? Why were they not reported from the start as COVID? Is it simply that the corpse tested positive, and cause of death was something else entirely? (There’ve been many false positives reported this way — person dies in traffic accident, but corpse tests positive, so it’s flagged as a COVID death. Stupid. And inflammatory.) What, Why, How, When? Insufficient data…

This is what passes for professional reporting of stats and numbers on something it has been deemed people really need to know. (That is subject to debate, frankly.) Yet it is being reported in such a sloppy, slip-shod manner that it is hard to determine what the actual facts are, and as such will almost certainly spread more panic than is actually warranted.

The panic-pandemic (running parallel with the COVID-pandemic) has done much damage, and I wonder — if numbers could be attached to that damage — if the panic itself hasn’t done more harm than COVID. (Stress levels with the attendant shortening of lives, shootings during arguments over masks [yes, there have been some], and so forth.) If you look at death statistics, adjusted for yearly reporting, COVID deaths are running about the same as heart-disease deaths, world wide. Yet we are not reporting a heart-disease pandemic, even though it more than qualifies for that status.

We need better, cleaner, more carefully neutral, factual and statistically complete reporting on what’s going on. Or we need to do without. The above report can do little more than cause unjustified panic for some, frustration for others, and a exasperated wag of the head from any one who is fed up with sloppy officials.

County Officials: Shame on you!  You can do better, and thereby spread less panic, be a voice for sanity, offer actual facts instead of vague inferences. You can do that, but so far you are not.

(BTW: the above was extracted from a report that has been going on daily here ever since the pandemic was officially recognized. The above is nothing new in its sloppiness. The reported numbers have never been sufficiently qualified. No margin of error has ever been offered, either. And any number reporting that does not include a margin of error is simply none-sense reporting(2)

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(1) “vaccine” — it’s not a vaccine and calling it one is extremely misleading. It’s a prophylactic treatment at best. It does not keep you from getting COVID. It does not keep you from spreading COVID. It *might* reduce the window during which you are contagious to others, though this is under debate. All it really does is reduce your change of ending up in ICU.

(2) Especially national elections, where the margin of error might be more than 1%, all things considered [that’s a guess, but a considered one],  and the vote tallies are less than 1% apart, meaning the results of most national elections are guesses and/or bogus. (Even without considering what fraud or tampering might also be involved.) Margin of error is an essential factor in all statistical reporting: elections, COVID, heart cases, this is all statistical reporting. An accurate flat-out count is never possible on any large scale. Margin of error: how many recent American national elections have been decided on numbers that were inside the margin of error? Meaning that a clear winner was impossible to call, yet was called anyway? Bad. Very bad. National elections should always require a minimum margin to “win” by. 51%, maybe (or accurately done: it would be 50% plus one more vote plus the margin of error). Elections where the tallies are otherwise too close to each other can not be honestly called, and should be declared null and the election should be repeated, until a clear (clear, I say!!) winner can be called.

Otherwise, clever manipulation can decide the outcome by operating entirely inside that hidden-in-plain-site flaw in the reporting, without any actual “cheating” or voter fraud, leaving all reported cheating and fraud, voter disenfranchisement, fiddling with the post office, etc, to be merely slight-of-hand or smoke and mirrors to distract the voters en-mass from the real source of manipulation.

All journalists should be required to have substantial training in statistics (if not an actual 2 year degree), in order keep numbers meaningful and accurate, and to avoid the ancient (and misleading) expression, “lies, damn lies and statistics” from being true. It’s only true when statistics are abused, as they almost always are in the American media, and probably all “western”  media [though that needs some qualification — “all” is not a fair statement, though “nearly all” might be].

Anyway… just a side-bar rant. Think on it, or not, as you wish.