It’s Saturday, and it’s time for a little ranting from your Managing Editor.
Most of you know I wrote a regular column on the WuFlu over at another site. I did a lot of reading, a lot of study and educated myself on topics that I had little knowledge about previously. I dug through raw statistical data, searched out original sources and tried my best to present an unbiased, panic free look at what was going on.
Once enough data was in several things became clear to me. First up, and this is something I’ve said over and over, getting the chinese coronavirus isn’t a death sentence. Even with potentially inflated numbers, only about 2% of those who catch this disease face any type of serious consequence. What’s more, the vast majority of deaths (80%) attributed to the WuFlu are in those 65 and older.
Gallup and the Brookings institute have taken a look at what people believe about covid19. The results aren’t all that encouraging. Because everything is political, they broke it down by party affiliation.
It’s interesting to note that people across the board get the numbers wrong, but those on the left overestimate the deaths in those under 65 and underestimate deaths in those 65 and older more than those on the right. What’s troubling to me is that very few on either side were even close. I’ll touch on the reasons why a bit later.
The next graph shows the responses for hospitalization estimates. Again, the dems surveyed got this number, which happens to be between 1 and 5%, wrong more than the repubs. The second part of this graphic combines responses with a numeracy score.
Why does it seem so many people across the political spectrum are so misinformed? Clearly beacuse they haven’t read any of my WuFlu work.
All kidding aside, there are serious issues with dissemination of accurate, unbiased information about the chinese coronavirus. Most major news outlets push panic porn. Very few publish or broadcast the unvarnished truth, preferring to sensationalize or underplay.
Why? I suppose it comes down to ratings, although there is likely an element of agenda driving the decisions. Who would believe Dr. Strangeglove err Fauci if they knew that the hospitalization rate for wuflu is 5% or less, or that under 24’s make up less than one tenth of one percent of the fatalities or that those younger than 55 only make up 7% of deaths?