Post by Admin on Jul 24, 2021 9:53:59 GMT -6
Originally posted Apr 2, 2020 with article link (may be dead now) - moved here July 24, 2021
Some of you may have seen this article and begun to worry about things all the more. There are reasons why the premise of the article are totally misleading while still being factually correct. I won't say that there is nothing to worry about at all, since the virus does exist, but this particular addition to the fearmongering can be explained away by timing, mathematics and a little common sense.
First, what does the author state? On March 31, the death rate in the US (total deaths from Corona divided by total cases of Corona) went above the 2% threshold which is a very dangerous number. Experts have stated that the value is actually much lower than that and they are relying on predictions/models/forecasts that do not take a death rate this high into account!! Things could be even worse than the experts are predicting!!!! Can I add more exclamations?!?!?!?! To be totally factual (I am tracking the stats on the same site that the author cited) the death rate from Corona in the US at the end of March 31 was 2.15% and at the end of April 1st was even higher at 2.37%. Experts state that the actual death rate from Corona should be near or below 1%.
Why is this not as scary as the author is trying to make it? There are two main attacks to his premise. I will outline them here.
First, most cases of Corona lead to mild or moderate symptoms, do not require a hospital stay and do not lead to death. There is consensus across the world that many actual cases of Corona are not being diagnosed. This is the basis for social distancing and the shuttering in of the world. However, this also has an effect on reported death rates due to Corona which also works in favor of those wanting to expand control and keep the lockdown going. Common sense tells you that everyone who dies from Corona will have been diagnosed with Corona either pre- or post-mortem. That is, every single person that dies form Corona will be counted as having died from Corona. Can the same be said for every person that gets Corona? No, definitely not. They are saving the testing kits for those in the most dire straits and 80% of cases present with no, mild or moderate symptoms. Thus, we will have a full reporting of all death from Corona and a severe under-reporting of all the total cases of Corona. This makes the death rate ratio inflated to begin with. My tracking and several other people who are more expert than me say that the reported death rate for Corona virus should end up around 1-1.5% . . . I argue that even this value would be overblown due to lack of proper testing in those with mild symptoms and the actual death rate is 1/3 to 1/4 of that amount. This is the common sense approach to attacking what the article is stating.
Secondly, there is the timing and mathematics approach to attacking these statements. We are in an odd time statistically for the progression of the virus. From the beginning of March to about March 23-24 the day over day increase in the number of cases of Corona was 25-50% per day (average of 34%), since then it has been dropping steadily and the last 4 days have been 16%, 14%, 15% and 14%. Many would attribute this to the stay at home orders and proof of the effects of social distancing. I am skeptical of that part (probably because I am angry at how much the associated tanking of the economy has taken from me personally) but I cannot argue the numbers. So, the day over day number of diagnosed cases of Corona are decreasing as a percentage of the total number of cases quite significantly, but the deaths are not. Why? To be frank, it takes time to die from Corona virus. You don't get it and die in the same day. So, death rates lag about 7-10 days behind diagnosis rates. The diagnosis slowdown started about a week ago and really fell off a cliff in the last 4 days. We can expect to see the same trend in the death rate, just delayed by 7-10 days or so.
So while we are in the statistical anomaly of decreasing diagnoses and lagging, steady (or increasing?) death rates, here come an article that says "OMG!! The sky is falling!!" and add to this the fact that the overall death rate is artificially higher due to lack of proper diagnosis overall, this is an excellent case of an opinion article that was at the top of the Fox News website for a couple of hours that is both factually correct and totally misleading. Be careful what you read out there. Think for yourself and don't simply trust the math sound bites or text snippets that you hear/see.
Remember . . . if one person is sick and another gets sick along side them, that's a 100% increase in cases of the illness!! It also goes in the other direction. While total day over day cases of Corona are increasing, the underlying numbers show that the spread is actually slowing down across the US, but the death rate from that is going to lag 7-10 days behind, because that's how long it takes to die. It was very clever timing on the part of whoever put out that article to being with. Either that or a very bad background in math and a tendencies to only look of the surface of the numbers available.
www.foxnews.com/opinion/coronavirus-mortality-rate-grim-andrew-mccarthy?fbclid=IwAR0S_hvYyaQFfa7KzExVABzsYnFAaLtxsB0zcly53eR52xT86-mbio3V0pg
Some of you may have seen this article and begun to worry about things all the more. There are reasons why the premise of the article are totally misleading while still being factually correct. I won't say that there is nothing to worry about at all, since the virus does exist, but this particular addition to the fearmongering can be explained away by timing, mathematics and a little common sense.
First, what does the author state? On March 31, the death rate in the US (total deaths from Corona divided by total cases of Corona) went above the 2% threshold which is a very dangerous number. Experts have stated that the value is actually much lower than that and they are relying on predictions/models/forecasts that do not take a death rate this high into account!! Things could be even worse than the experts are predicting!!!! Can I add more exclamations?!?!?!?! To be totally factual (I am tracking the stats on the same site that the author cited) the death rate from Corona in the US at the end of March 31 was 2.15% and at the end of April 1st was even higher at 2.37%. Experts state that the actual death rate from Corona should be near or below 1%.
Why is this not as scary as the author is trying to make it? There are two main attacks to his premise. I will outline them here.
First, most cases of Corona lead to mild or moderate symptoms, do not require a hospital stay and do not lead to death. There is consensus across the world that many actual cases of Corona are not being diagnosed. This is the basis for social distancing and the shuttering in of the world. However, this also has an effect on reported death rates due to Corona which also works in favor of those wanting to expand control and keep the lockdown going. Common sense tells you that everyone who dies from Corona will have been diagnosed with Corona either pre- or post-mortem. That is, every single person that dies form Corona will be counted as having died from Corona. Can the same be said for every person that gets Corona? No, definitely not. They are saving the testing kits for those in the most dire straits and 80% of cases present with no, mild or moderate symptoms. Thus, we will have a full reporting of all death from Corona and a severe under-reporting of all the total cases of Corona. This makes the death rate ratio inflated to begin with. My tracking and several other people who are more expert than me say that the reported death rate for Corona virus should end up around 1-1.5% . . . I argue that even this value would be overblown due to lack of proper testing in those with mild symptoms and the actual death rate is 1/3 to 1/4 of that amount. This is the common sense approach to attacking what the article is stating.
Secondly, there is the timing and mathematics approach to attacking these statements. We are in an odd time statistically for the progression of the virus. From the beginning of March to about March 23-24 the day over day increase in the number of cases of Corona was 25-50% per day (average of 34%), since then it has been dropping steadily and the last 4 days have been 16%, 14%, 15% and 14%. Many would attribute this to the stay at home orders and proof of the effects of social distancing. I am skeptical of that part (probably because I am angry at how much the associated tanking of the economy has taken from me personally) but I cannot argue the numbers. So, the day over day number of diagnosed cases of Corona are decreasing as a percentage of the total number of cases quite significantly, but the deaths are not. Why? To be frank, it takes time to die from Corona virus. You don't get it and die in the same day. So, death rates lag about 7-10 days behind diagnosis rates. The diagnosis slowdown started about a week ago and really fell off a cliff in the last 4 days. We can expect to see the same trend in the death rate, just delayed by 7-10 days or so.
So while we are in the statistical anomaly of decreasing diagnoses and lagging, steady (or increasing?) death rates, here come an article that says "OMG!! The sky is falling!!" and add to this the fact that the overall death rate is artificially higher due to lack of proper diagnosis overall, this is an excellent case of an opinion article that was at the top of the Fox News website for a couple of hours that is both factually correct and totally misleading. Be careful what you read out there. Think for yourself and don't simply trust the math sound bites or text snippets that you hear/see.
Remember . . . if one person is sick and another gets sick along side them, that's a 100% increase in cases of the illness!! It also goes in the other direction. While total day over day cases of Corona are increasing, the underlying numbers show that the spread is actually slowing down across the US, but the death rate from that is going to lag 7-10 days behind, because that's how long it takes to die. It was very clever timing on the part of whoever put out that article to being with. Either that or a very bad background in math and a tendencies to only look of the surface of the numbers available.
www.foxnews.com/opinion/coronavirus-mortality-rate-grim-andrew-mccarthy?fbclid=IwAR0S_hvYyaQFfa7KzExVABzsYnFAaLtxsB0zcly53eR52xT86-mbio3V0pg