Facts
and Figures
Statistics are not something I usually worry
about. But with this Covid-19 crisis going on there are pages and pages of numbers
and graphs and models being shown all over the place; internet news sources, social
media pages, newspapers, regular network TV and cable TV. I’ve even seen
cartoons alluding to facts and figures. And I guess it’s good that all this
information is so readily available. However, given the American tendency to
argue about everything, I wonder if there’s any value in spreading all these
numbers around. It’s especially worrisome if there are conflicts in various
sets of research results or predictions based on different extrapolated models.
(Extrapolated models – two words I’ve never used and barely understand)
We Americans like to think we’re pretty
smart. And, to borrow a phrase I saw in an article yesterday, we think because
we’ve attended the University of Google we know lots and lots of stuff about
nearly everything. Supposedly, according to Google, we’re the best-informed
population to ever squat in any place on this planet. A friend of mine recently
posted a longish article describing what real research looks like. It was all I
could do to finish the thing. But I did, and I decided then and there that I
would stick to a more pedestrian layman’s form of research. Real research is
hard work. Checking multiple sources, finding original sources, weighting the
bias in a source, looking up words to see if they mean what they seem to mean,
reading footnotes (who the hell reads those things?) constitute hard mental
labor.
So, I skim the news, pay close attention
to visual aids, read columns from really smart people who get the information
down to my non-expert level while throwing in some good jokes, and then formulate
my opinions (also known as brilliant observations) from all of that. Then I run
my mouth as if I’ve done months and months of research. Just kidding.
And that brings me back to data analysis.
The Corona Virus numbers are confusing. Depending on the source, we are either
headed for complete extinction or we’re well on our way to beating the pants off
this thing. Just figuring out how each study arrives at the little lines on the
graph is a daunting task. Some studies include something they call “unreported
cases” or “suspected cases.” Apparently, they use some fancy algorithm (what
the heck is an algorithm, by the way?) to get the numbers of these cases. This
is what statisticians do. They make informed guesses. Which is suspiciously
like weather forecasters, and we know how often they’re right. But the actual
facts in their charts and graphs don’t always match up with each other. A lot
of people have been killed by this virus. But some people doing the counting
are saying a person died from the virus even if that person already was very
sick from lung cancer or heart disease or some other awful ailment. And some of
those who died “from the virus” were never actually tested because tests were
not available at the time.
All of this doesn’t matter. People are
getting sick. Some people are getting very, very sick. And some people are
dying. This is not unlike the flu. But the official line is that it is not like
the flu. This virus is much more virulent; we don’t know enough about it, it
spreads faster, it affects more parts of the body, good treatments are not
available, there is no vaccine. And here’s one of the “brilliant observations”
I mentioned earlier: arguing about whether it’s like the flu or not is just
kind of silly. Let the medical people figure that out. And let the medical
people figure out the best treatments and let them create a vaccine in due
time. If I’m sitting here on the River arguing on line with a very kind poet lady
from Petaluma, CA about whether the University of Sacramento’s study on hot
spots is better than the University of Michigan’s, I’m doing nothing good at
all. We should be talking about what a fine poem she just wrote. We can commiserate
on the terrible nature of this disease. We can offer sympathy to each other for
the personal losses we have experienced during this crisis or others. We can
even offer each other suggestions on how to deal with the loneliness of quarantine.
But arguing about statistics won’t help either of us and our arguments very
well could be based on opinions derived from lack of expertise.
I know a couple of people who are actually
doing the hard research. They study the studies, they read the deep journals, they
compare, check sources, understand science and know how to apply filters to all
this information. And they are very cautious when they speak on what they’ve
learned. They also don’t argue with angry voices. One of my friends has done a
whole lot of research and he has also listened to nearly every briefing put out
by the White House, the CDC, several state Governors, FEMA and even the Public
Health Agency in Canada. He told me, quietly, that it would be better to listen
only to the people directly involved in the sciences of epidemiology, virology,
internal medicine and general health care. He advised me to stay away from
politicians and the politically motivated, pollsters, commercial news sources
and statisticians. Another friend out in California (which seems to be a test
lab for societal problems) also watches daily briefings and pays close
attention to the numbers, pointing out discrepancy after discrepancy in an
excellent, near daily recap. He’s a calm and reasonable fellow but his
increasing frustration reflects the chaos he observes.
And, of course, don’t look for much good,
solid information on social media. For every accurate, reasonable, fact-checked
piece on Facebook you’ll find hundreds of bits of foolishness and fantasy. Social
media is fine for many entertaining things but it’s not the place to learn
science and medicine. Enjoy the funny skits, excellent musical postings and friendly
banter from relatives and acquaintances. Just don’t rely on social media for answers
to important questions.
I need to bring in some more firewood for
the wood stove now. And I think I’ll read some poetry. A friend sent me a volume
of James Wright’s work and that will require enough concentration to
effectively distract me from all this statistical business. Hope you all have a
fine day in your varying degrees of isolation.
