4 ms·

This is a garbage number. New York reclassified a bunch of folks that died over the last few days as COVID deaths under their new methodology, where all deaths

by vanniv 6y ago

This is a garbage number. New York reclassified a bunch of folks that died over the last few days as COVID deaths under their new methodology, where all deaths are covid deaths if there is even a hint that they might have had COVID. These are not deaths that occurred in a 24-hour period. These are deaths that were reported in a 24-hour period, and covers basically everyone with any respiratory illness who died at home on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Trying to compare that to a rate of deaths in hospital of likely or confirmed cases (the methodology used from last week until Tuesday), or hospital deaths of confirmed cases (the methodology used before last week) is meaningless. If you change methodology, you really have to go back and recast historic numbers. But that isn't being done.

jMyles 6y ago
...what an asinine headline. This is open letter worthy from reputable epidemiologists. It's been hard enough to identify and asses data (and expert commentary) without unambiguously deceptive (and panic-riddled) reporting like this.
- LB232323 6y ago
  The profitable manufacture of fear and justification of government overreach has been a reliable product and goal of sensationalist journalism for a very long time. The Spanish-American War is a prime example. If anything, this crisis has drawn visible lines between those with unwavering trust in mass media and those without. Those who have good reasons to distrust authority have been the least likely to comply with orders and recommendations from both government agencies and mass media outlets. On the other hand, those who benefit from the current power structure have taken to their advice with great enthusiasm. Between these groups are those like yourself who try to sift through the sensationalism for good information. Even then, international authorities like WHO have revealed clear political bias in regards to issues like Taiwanese independence. Who can we trust?
  - jMyles 6y ago
    > The Spanish-American War is a prime example. Where is our John Quincy Adams?
    - LB232323 6y ago
      Either here or arriving soon, if recent election corruption scandals are anything to go by. You can add the trade war to that list given the resulting revolution in the Philippines.
henriquez 6y ago
> If you change methodology, you really have to go back and recast historic numbers. But that isn't being done. This makes sense~ without some kind of reporting standard, every jurisdiction is free to apply their own methodology and we're prone to receive inaccurate (or politically biased) information. That might mean inflating numbers, or deflating (as is the case with China, an enormous country with miraculously no infections or deaths since the day they coincidentally kicked all western journalists out). New York changing their methodology out of the blue this week puts a curious asterisk on both the numbers we're getting from them now and the numbers we got from them previously. Why the sudden change?
- bb2018 6y ago
  NY still has their old number of "confirmed deaths" which they were using previously and continue to report as a separate number from "probable deaths". The article linked to doesn't mention that but what NY is doing makes sense. It lets us see the general trends using the old methodology while still being smart about counting going forward. It is very open and every state + country should do something similar. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-deaths.html?auth=login-email&login=email https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronav...
- mikechen233 6y ago
  China never kicked Western journalists out. It revoked journalist liscence from a number of journalists from Washington Post, nyt, and wall street journal as a retailation when the US designated five Chinese media as Beijing operatives. Media from other countries, UK, Germany etc are all in China. You can see reporting and interviews in China by bbc, Reuters and many others right now. As from the virus in China, as person who have many relatives and friends near wuhan and in Beijing, from all information sources I can gather, there is no massive spread in China right now. They staying highly alert but there isn't a large number of infections right now. And my anecdotal observation on the severity of the issue during February matches with the official count. So I don't believe there is massive under-reporting. All my friends and family don't buy there is massive deliberate under reporting as well.
- knolax 6y ago
zuminator 6y ago
"If you change methodology, you really have to go back and recast historic numbers. But that isn't being done." That is completely inaccurate. The deaths were added to historic numbers, and the "garbage number" is what was added to the total cumulatively to-date, and did not represent a 24 hour number on official stats. See the graphs on these pages. As you can see there is no discontinuous jump. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-deaths.html?smid=tw-share https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronav... [1] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page

by vanniv 6y ago

jMyles 6y ago

...what an asinine headline. This is open letter worthy from reputable epidemiologists. It's been hard enough to identify and asses data (and expert commentary) without unambiguously deceptive (and panic-riddled) reporting like this.

LB232323 6y ago
The profitable manufacture of fear and justification of government overreach has been a reliable product and goal of sensationalist journalism for a very long time. The Spanish-American War is a prime example. If anything, this crisis has drawn visible lines between those with unwavering trust in mass media and those without. Those who have good reasons to distrust authority have been the least likely to comply with orders and recommendations from both government agencies and mass media outlets. On the other hand, those who benefit from the current power structure have taken to their advice with great enthusiasm. Between these groups are those like yourself who try to sift through the sensationalism for good information. Even then, international authorities like WHO have revealed clear political bias in regards to issues like Taiwanese independence. Who can we trust?
- jMyles 6y ago
  > The Spanish-American War is a prime example. Where is our John Quincy Adams?
  - LB232323 6y ago
    Either here or arriving soon, if recent election corruption scandals are anything to go by. You can add the trade war to that list given the resulting revolution in the Philippines.

henriquez 6y ago

> If you change methodology, you really have to go back and recast historic numbers. But that isn't being done. This makes sense~ without some kind of reporting standard, every jurisdiction is free to apply their own methodology and we're prone to receive inaccurate (or politically biased) information. That might mean inflating numbers, or deflating (as is the case with China, an enormous country with miraculously no infections or deaths since the day they coincidentally kicked all western journalists out). New York changing their methodology out of the blue this week puts a curious asterisk on both the numbers we're getting from them now and the numbers we got from them previously. Why the sudden change?

bb2018 6y ago
NY still has their old number of "confirmed deaths" which they were using previously and continue to report as a separate number from "probable deaths". The article linked to doesn't mention that but what NY is doing makes sense. It lets us see the general trends using the old methodology while still being smart about counting going forward. It is very open and every state + country should do something similar. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-deaths.html?auth=login-email&login=email https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronav...
mikechen233 6y ago
China never kicked Western journalists out. It revoked journalist liscence from a number of journalists from Washington Post, nyt, and wall street journal as a retailation when the US designated five Chinese media as Beijing operatives. Media from other countries, UK, Germany etc are all in China. You can see reporting and interviews in China by bbc, Reuters and many others right now. As from the virus in China, as person who have many relatives and friends near wuhan and in Beijing, from all information sources I can gather, there is no massive spread in China right now. They staying highly alert but there isn't a large number of infections right now. And my anecdotal observation on the severity of the issue during February matches with the official count. So I don't believe there is massive under-reporting. All my friends and family don't buy there is massive deliberate under reporting as well.
knolax 6y ago

zuminator 6y ago

"If you change methodology, you really have to go back and recast historic numbers. But that isn't being done." That is completely inaccurate. The deaths were added to historic numbers, and the "garbage number" is what was added to the total cumulatively to-date, and did not represent a 24 hour number on official stats. See the graphs on these pages. As you can see there is no discontinuous jump. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-deaths.html?smid=tw-share https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronav... [1] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page