Lies, Trump lies and COVID 19 statistics

We may  (if you are in the same bubble as me) know that Donald Trump is the extreme so far as believing whatever suits his ego, however we do all need to be aware of two things at this time of disinformation, incomplete information and too much information.

First: confirmation bias. As stated psychological research indicates that we tend to be selective in our evidence when it comes to seeking confirmation of our pre existing ideas. At this time people are looking for signs of hope “new shoots” whilst others are seeking to alarm. The evidence itself maybe neutral but what we do with it, is not.

Second: unreliability of statistics, apples and pears in the same basket. It is clear that statistics regarding the pandemic are kept differently in different legislations, in some cases it may be deliberate suppression, in others it may be a lack of apparatus to collect reliable statistics as we have seen with the variable rates of testing around the world. Hospital admissions cannot be relied upon either in a world where there is an uneven distribution of hospitals, they will be higher in those States with a more advanced Health Service.

Even crude mortality statistics are unreliable, as there are a variety of ways to interrogate them. Do they record people who died from the virus or with the virus? Again that is going to be subject to the human element, the opinion of the doctor who signed a certificate.  We have also seen in the UK that there is inaccurate reporting because of delays in reporting a death.

We will never know for sure even when it is long over, as figures and the conclusions drawn from them can only ever be an estimate within certain confidence levels. One thing is for sure, it will take as long as it takes for a vaccine before we have the leisure to sort out the jumble of figures we are getting now.