3 ms·

I'm not quite sure what your point is. The absolute number is the number, and zooming in to make it a relative number for dramatic effect doesn't change that.

I'm not quite sure what your point is. The absolute number is the number, and zooming in to make it a relative number for dramatic effect doesn't change that. It's kind of like zooming in to a stock market graph so the spikes look bigger.

jussij 5y ago
The OP's point is focusing on that absolute number is not a good measure, only because when compared to the world population it gives the 0.1-0.2% of population effected result, which is obviously way off.
HatchedLake721 5y ago
Because numbers and how people interpret data is hugely important (there was a great article years ago how data visualization tricks can completely make a person misinterpret the presented information) People can read and shout - I WAS RIGHT!! Only 0.1% people die of covid, lockdowns were unnecessary, masks don’t help, everyone’s a sheep for believing covid is anything more serious than a flu. Now they want to vaccinate us for this, what a joke. Wake up people!! This is how people can misunderstand and spread misinformation because they don’t have the experience reading and interpreting such data and make conclusions. Per [1] United States’ current covid deaths is 912k. That is twice the amount USA lost during WW2. So on one side of the spectrum we have “wake up people, 0.1%, this is a hoax” and on another side we have that more people died from covid in a single year than the sum of all war and terrorist casualties USA had in the last 150 years. Context matters. [1] - http://www.healthdata.org/special-analysis/estimation-excess-mortality-due-covid-19-and-scalars-reported-covid-19-deaths http://www.healthdata.org/special-analysis/estimation-excess...
- akomtu 5y ago
  What's the age distribution of that 0.1%? I guess it's mostly old people. When a war takes down a big chunk of young males, it's a problem. When a pandemic takes down 2x more but only old people, the nation may as well not notice that. This coronavirus is surprisingly courteous in this regard for it doesn't touch the young folks.
- klmadfejno 5y ago
  But it is 0.1%. That's a fact. You keep saying things like "misunderstand", and straw manning people who think 0.1% is a relatively small proportion of the population as people who are claiming the virus is a hoax. It's true that fewer lives were lost to wars in the past 150 years and terrorist attacks. But that's also a somewhat misleading data comparison. Terrorism is basically nothing for Americans but is implied to be relevant. The 150 years mark is carefully chosen to avoid including the civil war, which comes close to matching covid numbers on its own, nominally, and is hugely higher on a percentage level (it was ~2%). Context matters. Normalized to population size, you would need 20 COVID 19 pandemics to match the scale of the civil war. The proportional rates for other countries besides the US which tended to do quite well in WWII were obviously much more slanted towards the effects of war. Some light googling suggests Germany lost about 10% of its population during wwII. The overall world lost about 3% of its population (~80 million people). Covid was not a hoax, but you're pushing a fair heaping of bias while implying to take any other view would be misunderstanding or spreading misinformation
- chmod600 5y ago
  Helping people interpret data and providing context is good. You seem to be taking it a step further to create a messaging strategy around these numbers that will cause the reaction you think is best for everyone. While the intent is noble and may work in practice to some extent, I don't think that's a good thing. That leads to a lot of distrust of experts because people can sense it.

jussij 5y ago

The OP's point is focusing on that absolute number is not a good measure, only because when compared to the world population it gives the 0.1-0.2% of population effected result, which is obviously way off.

HatchedLake721 5y ago

Because numbers and how people interpret data is hugely important (there was a great article years ago how data visualization tricks can completely make a person misinterpret the presented information) People can read and shout - I WAS RIGHT!! Only 0.1% people die of covid, lockdowns were unnecessary, masks don’t help, everyone’s a sheep for believing covid is anything more serious than a flu. Now they want to vaccinate us for this, what a joke. Wake up people!! This is how people can misunderstand and spread misinformation because they don’t have the experience reading and interpreting such data and make conclusions. Per [1] United States’ current covid deaths is 912k. That is twice the amount USA lost during WW2. So on one side of the spectrum we have “wake up people, 0.1%, this is a hoax” and on another side we have that more people died from covid in a single year than the sum of all war and terrorist casualties USA had in the last 150 years. Context matters. [1] - http://www.healthdata.org/special-analysis/estimation-excess-mortality-due-covid-19-and-scalars-reported-covid-19-deaths http://www.healthdata.org/special-analysis/estimation-excess...

akomtu 5y ago
What's the age distribution of that 0.1%? I guess it's mostly old people. When a war takes down a big chunk of young males, it's a problem. When a pandemic takes down 2x more but only old people, the nation may as well not notice that. This coronavirus is surprisingly courteous in this regard for it doesn't touch the young folks.
klmadfejno 5y ago
But it is 0.1%. That's a fact. You keep saying things like "misunderstand", and straw manning people who think 0.1% is a relatively small proportion of the population as people who are claiming the virus is a hoax. It's true that fewer lives were lost to wars in the past 150 years and terrorist attacks. But that's also a somewhat misleading data comparison. Terrorism is basically nothing for Americans but is implied to be relevant. The 150 years mark is carefully chosen to avoid including the civil war, which comes close to matching covid numbers on its own, nominally, and is hugely higher on a percentage level (it was ~2%). Context matters. Normalized to population size, you would need 20 COVID 19 pandemics to match the scale of the civil war. The proportional rates for other countries besides the US which tended to do quite well in WWII were obviously much more slanted towards the effects of war. Some light googling suggests Germany lost about 10% of its population during wwII. The overall world lost about 3% of its population (~80 million people). Covid was not a hoax, but you're pushing a fair heaping of bias while implying to take any other view would be misunderstanding or spreading misinformation
chmod600 5y ago
Helping people interpret data and providing context is good. You seem to be taking it a step further to create a messaging strategy around these numbers that will cause the reaction you think is best for everyone. While the intent is noble and may work in practice to some extent, I don't think that's a good thing. That leads to a lot of distrust of experts because people can sense it.