7 responses to “The Covid threat : math vs. language”

1. 

   anewscienceblog

   February 27, 2025

   I was surprised how math-untrusting the general population is.

   As mentioned in an earlier post, media would report the aggregate numbers “300 people died today in the USA.” (This was the typical daily death in summers.) The population of USA is over 300 million. Therefore, that meant 1 in a million people died.

   But the 300 number seems like a lot of people died, the 1 in a million made it seem like it was – nothing of relevance.

   People did not understand that the media report “300 died” was EXACTLY the same as “1 in a million died.” They revolted against being given the simple math, sure that this making light of the danger was somehow fake, somehow less real than the “300 died.”

   This was simple elementary school math. The point was these people did not trust their own mathematical learning.

   There was high school level math that further showed that there was absolutely NO PUBLIC DANGER, there was nobody really dying, all the dying were about to die anyway.

   But if the public didn’t trust their own elementary school math – that they could have theoretically fact checked themselves personally – I think asking them to sit down and remember high school math, median and expected values, was too much.

   It proved to me that most people see math as something to somehow get through, and graduate elementary school, never mind high school, without actually learning what math is all about.

   It really surprised me that people could not trust their own fact-checking that they could do themselves, personally, by using math they had been taught in elementary school!

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2. 

   anewscienceblog

   February 27, 2025

   If people had been able to discuss the issue WITH the math instead of without, the conversation would have been much different IMHO.

   Instead of heroic (and turns out utterly useless and negative) efforts to stop the spread of the disease – once the understanding had sunk-in that the people dying from Covid were only those just about to die anyway – discussion and efforts might have focused on making the deaths painless and comforting, instead of the freak-out murderous suicidal social nightmare people turned this into.

   Math is not a fiend; it is your friend.

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3. 

   anewscienceblog

   March 1, 2025

   So basically, the 1-in-a-million daily deaths during summer meant – your chances of dying from Covid was like winning a lottery. Moreover, there was the median and expected value math that showed this was a rigged lottery – only the ones who were already about to die, were winning this ghastly lottery.

   In short, if you did not know or did not trust the math, you knew for a fact that there was a very dangerous virus raging outside. You were taking precautions, ordering in food, masking, maintaining 6-feet distance, waiting for the vaccine.

   If you knew and trusted the math, you knew for a fact that the media was lying for some convoluted reason, the numbers very clearly and without doubt said there was no reason to be concerned. I was having a good time myself, doing Meetup restaurant groups with like-minded people, living normal life, though a bit fearful of the arrival of the vaccine.

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   1. 

      anewscienceblog

      March 7, 2025

      The one in a million number for USA was for summers.

      In winters, the daily deaths could be around 3,000 which turns out to be one in a hundred thousand. One in 100,000 is still lottery odds.

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4. 

   anewscienceblog

   March 8, 2025

   A valid question could arise – weren’t those numbers just the result of precautions?

   Even if they were, the attitude of fear was not warranted. Fear is not a good emotion for fighting disease, people need to be kept cheerful. This is called “placebo effect” but what the media did caused a “nocebo effect.”

   Other countries which complied much less with the precautions, had less deaths even than the 1 in a hundred thousand to 1 in a million of USA.

   There is some logic that the cause of higher death rates in USA were masks. Masks increased deaths. They became filthy, most people frequently touched them with their hands, and hands touch everything. This much is established fact even via all the media bias. And it does explain why the heavily masked USA had higher death rates than less news-reading countries where compliance was slipshod compared to the relatively literate and science-minded US population.

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   1. 

      anewscienceblog

      March 8, 2025

      Early on skeptics commented that the deaths being reported were not “from Covid” but “with Covid.”

      After every death, hospitals checked the body for covid virus. If the virus was found, it was reported as a covid death.

      The disease is mild. I think I have had it three or more times. But the symptoms do feel severe the first couple of times you catch it. I can see somebody on the brink of death from other diseases, kicking the bucket from the first attack. I myself was in bed for couple of days, the first time.

      But there can be cases where the patient was about to die, and just caught the virus in the operating room, and the virus was found in the body without having caused any symptoms. For I remember that many if not most people, were “asymptomatic.” The virus gave them no trouble, they didn’t even notice it, because they had no symptoms. No fever, no feeling bad, no need to lie in bed. If somebody didn’t swab their nose and tell them, they would never even have known they had covid. That’s an utterly mild disease, just like the math said.

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5. 

   anewscienceblog

   March 16, 2025

   What is the source of my data?

   Frankly, that question would be disturbing – for it implies too little skepticism, too much trust.

   If I were to provide sources, it would be silly to just trust them. You would have to find sources yourself anyway. That’s what real good faith scholarship is supposed to be, you are not supposed to blindly trust any sources I provide, for those could be biased sources that I am picking to support my viewpoints. (I don’t do that, but this is how much modern scholarship is done. “Scholarship” is actually the wrong word because scholars are not supposed to cite only favorable data, or to ask for sources from the person providing any greatly controversial logic. Skepticism and independent verification are requirements, intellectual laziness is not scholarly.)

   However, just for the record and not because I would like to be trusted on this, the data comes from my personal almost daily checking of Worldometer. The data should still be available in historical records.

   In summers, the reported deaths peaked around 300, in winters around 3000, over whole of USA. The deaths were supposedly over-reported and not under-reported in the USA.

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