Statistics

March 19, 2020 Longrider General News, General Rants, misanthropy 13

They’re great, aren’t they? Without context you can make them really scary. Take this, for example:

UK coronavirus death toll rises to 137 as another 29 patients die in England

The NHS has announced that a further 29 people who tested positive for coronavirus in England have died, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in England to 128. It says the patients were aged between 47 and 96 years old and had underlying health conditions.

These are hospital where the latest patients died:

  • London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust – 2
  • King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust – 1
  • Barts Health NHS Trust – 2
  • North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust – 2
  • Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust – 3
  • Homerton University Hospital Foundation Trust – 1
  • Barking Havering and Redbridge University Hospital NHS Trust- 4
  • Epsom and St. Helier NHS Trust – 2
  • Croydon Health NHS Trust – 1
  • The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust – 2
  • University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust- 1
  • Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust – 3
  • Sheffield Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust- 1
  • Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust – 1
  • Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust – 2
  • Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – 1

Total: 29

It takes the total number of deaths in the UK to 137

Okay. So all of them had underlying health conditions. How many would have succumbed to seasonal flu? How many were dying anyway? Without that context, these numbers are meaningless. What about recovery rates? What about how a normally healthy person fares? How many have been infected and made a full recovery?

Out of 65.64 million, 137 people with underlying health conditions have died of this disease. I don’t wish to downplay the seriousness of the rate of contagion, nor the lack of herd immunity that protects us from seasonal flu, but the level of panic is disproportionate. There is a sensible middle way here. The sheer level of panic inspired by the hysterical reporting isn’t helping matters.

I believe it was the Devil (sometimes of this parish) who suggested that journalists’ heads need to be on spikes. I’d go further. Tarred, feathered, flayed through the streets, a week in the stocks then hanged drawn and quartered. Then, and only then, put their miserable heads on spikes outside Traitor’s Gate.

13 Comments

  1. I have an underlying health condition, type 2 diabetes. I am very fit so that is in my favour, I am 61. I suppose that I am at a higher risk than most people but I’m not going to panic. With 137 out of 65 million I would say that the odds of me getting knocked off my bike are worse.

  2. Something that I am getting suspicious of, too – let me correct you, though: “…137 people with underlying health conditions have died of this disease.” Did the disease kill them or did they die while affected? Subtle difference, and one that I am noticing in the mainstream media – they usually do NOT state that the victims died of the disease, but died after contracting it, leaving it up to the generally gullible public to put 2 and 2 together, and (possibly) make 5. How many of those who have died were knocking on death’s door, anyway, and “Kung Flu” either hastened the answer, or just happened to be in their system when they shuffled off.

    • Did the disease kill them or did they die while affected?

      Probably poor wording on my part. I was trying to make the same point as you – that they may well have died anyway and the raw data without that context isn’t helpful.

    • Exactly the same argument applies to particulate pm2.5 pollution, but no one will take any notice. Would rather ‘narrate’ the green panic.

  3. Now for a bit of context: I just had a look at the official figures for flu related deaths in the UK. (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/839350/Surveillance_of_influenza_and_other_respiratory_viruses_in_the_UK_2018_to_2019-FINAL.pdf)
    2014/15 – 28,330
    2015/16 – 11,875
    2016/17 – 18,009
    2017/18 – 26,408
    Of course the Coronavirus is real but are governments using it as a ready made H L Mencken type hobgoblin?

  4. Italy’s figures are contaminated. Doctors apparently have much leeway for ‘cuase of death’. Everything is going down as coronavirus. They also have a very old population and most deaths are in the over 80s.

    Men die more (just for a change!)

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