Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

[Mike4]

As a sideline, I wonder when the BBC will stop issuing their daily gloomcast of the number of deaths etc. Now that the figures are down to the low 20's they are becoming rather silly, bearing in mind there are typically 1,600 - 1,700 deaths every day in normal times. Giving the CV deaths figure such prominence has the unfortunate effect of making these others seem unimportant. Non-covid deaths matter!

I see XFool has picked apart and highlighted most of the flawed thinking in your post, but s/he missed the particularly big flaw in the point above. It's depressing that so many are people still peddling it, even here.

The 1,600 to 1,700 deaths per day in normal times do not rise exponentially if left uncontrolled. Unlike deaths from COVID.

Oh and another point. Your post also seems to confuse coronavirus the infection with COVID the disease. Not everyone with coronavirus infection goes on to develop COVID the disease. EVERYONE with coronavirus infection however, is capable of infecting others.

Oh and yet another... It might not be us exaggerating the numbers. How do you know other countries are not understating theirs? There is a big incentive for any government to do so.

[Lootman]

Heart disease: 500
Cancer: 500
Road accidents: 200
Overdoses: 100
Domestic accidents: 50
Violent crime: 20
Covid 10
Sports accidents: 2
Lightning strikes: 1

You could always save a bit of time and cut out the ones that aren't contagious and might kill your gran (if she isn't vaccinated).

Covid:10

Oh yeah, as you were...

Irrelevant to the point I was making, which was that the death count is now below several much more serious killers, which are getting almost no news reporting.

I guess Covid sells papers and attracts eyeballs in a way that run-of-the-mill strokes and heart attacks cannot, and that feeds into media bias. And of course it feeds those who have come to love Covid and all its attendant reasons to wallow in gloom. But how will they wean themselves off their maudlin misery mania? Who needs hobbies?

[murraypaul]

I guess Covid sells papers and attracts eyeballs in a way that run-of-the-mill strokes and heart attacks cannot, and that feeds into media bias. And of course it feeds those who have come to love Covid and all its attendant reasons to wallow in gloom. But how will they wean themselves off their maudlin misery mania? Who needs hobbies?

What gloom and misery?
Covid news in the UK at the moment is good news.
Cases down, deaths down, 60% of the population vaccinated.

[Mike4]

I guess Covid sells papers and attracts eyeballs in a way that run-of-the-mill strokes and heart attacks cannot, and that feeds into media bias. And of course it feeds those who have come to love Covid and all its attendant reasons to wallow in gloom. But how will they wean themselves off their maudlin misery mania? Who needs hobbies?

What gloom and misery?
Covid news in the UK at the moment is good news.
Cases down, deaths down, 60% of the population vaccinated.

Yes it's great isn't it? Give it another fortnight and the world will have this problem cracked and fixed.

[Julian]

As a sideline, I wonder when the BBC will stop issuing their daily gloomcast of the number of deaths etc. Now that the figures are down to the low 20's they are becoming rather silly, bearing in mind there are typically 1,600 - 1,700 deaths every day in normal times. Giving the CV deaths figure such prominence has the unfortunate effect of making these others seem unimportant. Non-covid deaths matter!

So it hasn't occurred to you that reporting reducing figures of deaths etc. during a pandemic might not be a "daily gloomcast", it might actually be Good News?

The other day the number of daily new deaths was 10. I suppose you can argue it is news. But then maybe 15 people died that same day from falling down the stairs. Isn't that bigger news?

The reality is that any kind of focus on Covid has the effect of bigging it up as a story. The implication seems to be: "Yes, almost nobody is dying from this thing any more, but we want to keep ramming it down your throat anyway."

Instead how about a daily report of deaths in the UK and their cause, without commentary? Something like this:

Heart disease: 500
Cancer: 500
Road accidents: 200
Overdoses: 100
Domestic accidents: 50
Violent crime: 20
Covid 10
Sports accidents: 2
Lightning strikes: 1

What is the R number for any of those causes of death apart from Covid(-19?) As it happens I would agree that 10 Covid deaths in a day is not “down-side” news, apart of course for those 10 people and those consequently bereaved, it is actually a positive trend but equating non-contagious with contagious causes of death is something that some of us have been railing against since almost the beginning of this pandemic.

- Julian

[Lootman]

So it hasn't occurred to you that reporting reducing figures of deaths etc. during a pandemic might not be a "daily gloomcast", it might actually be Good News?

The other day the number of daily new deaths was 10. I suppose you can argue it is news. But then maybe 15 people died that same day from falling down the stairs. Isn't that bigger news?

The reality is that any kind of focus on Covid has the effect of bigging it up as a story. The implication seems to be: "Yes, almost nobody is dying from this thing any more, but we want to keep ramming it down your throat anyway."

Instead how about a daily report of deaths in the UK and their cause, without commentary? Something like this:

Heart disease: 500
Cancer: 500
Road accidents: 200
Overdoses: 100
Domestic accidents: 50
Violent crime: 20
Covid 10
Sports accidents: 2
Lightning strikes: 1

What is the R number for any of those causes of death apart from Covid(-19?) As it happens I would agree that 10 Covid deaths in a day is not “down-side” news, apart of course for those 10 people and those consequently bereaved, it is actually a positive trend but equating non-contagious with contagious causes of death is something that some of us have been railing against since almost the beginning of this pandemic.

As i explained to Swill, my point was about newsworthiness and not infectiousness.

[murraypaul]

I rather suspect that if the BBC did stop reporting the current low covid death rates, there would be cries that this proved the BBC were only interested in reporting on the bad covid news, and that now that things are getting better they are trying to cover it up.

Can't win really, can they?

[Julian]

The other day the number of daily new deaths was 10. I suppose you can argue it is news. But then maybe 15 people died that same day from falling down the stairs. Isn't that bigger news?

The reality is that any kind of focus on Covid has the effect of bigging it up as a story. The implication seems to be: "Yes, almost nobody is dying from this thing any more, but we want to keep ramming it down your throat anyway."

Instead how about a daily report of deaths in the UK and their cause, without commentary? Something like this:

Heart disease: 500
Cancer: 500
Road accidents: 200
Overdoses: 100
Domestic accidents: 50
Violent crime: 20
Covid 10
Sports accidents: 2
Lightning strikes: 1

What is the R number for any of those causes of death apart from Covid(-19?) As it happens I would agree that 10 Covid deaths in a day is not “down-side” news, apart of course for those 10 people and those consequently bereaved, it is actually a positive trend but equating non-contagious with contagious causes of death is something that some of us have been railing against since almost the beginning of this pandemic.

As i explained to Swill, my point was about newsworthiness and not infectiousness.

Yes, but absolute data sometimes (always?) needs context and the potential for exponential growth is, in my opinion, a critical differentiating context in this case.

- Julian

[XFool]

Heart disease: 500
Cancer: 500
Road accidents: 200
Overdoses: 100
Domestic accidents: 50
Violent crime: 20
Covid 10
Sports accidents: 2
Lightning strikes: 1

You could always save a bit of time and cut out the ones that aren't contagious and might kill your gran (if she isn't vaccinated).

Covid:10

Oh yeah, as you were...

Irrelevant to the point I was making, which was that the death count is now below several much more serious killers, which are getting almost no news reporting.

So yes, really. You are still not getting it, after all his time!

I guess Covid sells papers and attracts eyeballs in a way that run-of-the-mill strokes and heart attacks cannot, and that feeds into media bias.

Yeah, "media bias", that must be it...

And of course it feeds those who have come to love Covid and all its attendant reasons to wallow in gloom. But how will they wean themselves off their maudlin misery mania? Who needs hobbies?

So who exactly are all these (imaginary) people who "have come to love Covid"?

But, as there can be no real answer to this question, there isn't frankly much point in you trying to answer it, IMO. It sounds to me to be just another one of your, very many, strawman arguments.

[servodude]

Yes, but absolute data sometimes (always?) needs context and the potential for exponential growth is, in my opinion, a critical differentiating context in this case.

- Julian

It would be like cutting the broadcast from a match before it was over
If your team went 12 goals down in the first half; you would want them to cover the fight back until the whistle blew

-sd

[redsturgeon]

Instead how about a daily report of deaths in the UK and their cause, without commentary? Something like this:


Road accidents: 200

Or you could use the real numbers

Death by Road accidents <5 per day.

John

[Arborbridge]

Not sure where to post this because although the story contains a statistic, it is an extremely important statistic.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/0 ... sed-virus/

So deaths from Covid in the UK have been overstated by 33%. Some here have been keen to trumpet how bad the UK pandemic performance has been compared to other comparable countries. Maybe our performance has not been bad.

I know you like waving the flag (someone has to these days) but I'd take anything in the Torygraph with a pinch of salt. They are an utterly biassed source running their own little-englander-hating-EU agenda. It's barely a step above the DM.

Arb.

So you are saying the ONS is lying:
The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that 23 per cent of coronavirus deaths registered are now people who have died "with" the virus rather than "from" an infection.

Not at all: I'm saying what I'm saying

"I'd take anything in the Telegraph with a pinch of salt. They are an utterly biassed source running their own little-englander-hating-EU agenda. It's barely a step above the DM."

Caution is what I'm urging with regard to this broadsheet, particularly with any matters relating to the EU or Europe. They hate Europe and will dig out anything adverse and put a spin on it without putting the other side of the case which may sometimes mitigate. In other words, there is a difference between the truth and the whole truth.

We should be aware of that when reading posts, too, though for most posters it's more "omission" rather than "commission".

Arb

Moderator Message:
Edited to correct name of newspaper

[Bouleversee]

I thought that all the deaths that were announced said "with Covid" rather than "of Covid". In any case, it would have been daft to exclude deaths where those people had other underlying illnesses but contracted Covid and died within a short space of time. Catching Covid would most likely have hastened their end and who knows whether they might not have survived for quite a long time afterwards had they not done so, so the virus would have been responsible for their deaths at that time.

As for not reading out the number of deaths from 'Covid each day, that would be ridiculous. To see the dramatic lowering of the daily death number, which illustrates the success of the lockdown and the accelerated vaccine programme, should encourage everyone to get the vaccine and to carry on behaving sensibly and responsibly. Unfortunately, there are lots of people who think that the vaccine immediately lets them off the hook, which it doesn't.

[Lootman]

Instead how about a daily report of deaths in the UK and their cause, without commentary? Something like this:
Road accidents: 200

Or you could use the real numbers

Death by Road accidents <5 per day.

Literary license. CK's point and my tongue-in-cheek endorsement of it, was that the news cycle has not adjusted to the dramatic fall in cases and deaths. The reporting doesn't seem much different than it was in the dark days of last January or a year ago. We are obsessed.

Covid is now institutionised in the collective mindset and it will take a great effort to unwind it. The media isn't helping.

[redsturgeon]

Instead how about a daily report of deaths in the UK and their cause, without commentary? Something like this:
Road accidents: 200

Or you could use the real numbers

Death by Road accidents <5 per day.

Literary license. CK's point and my tongue-in-cheek endorsement of it, was that the news cycle has not adjusted to the dramatic fall in cases and deaths. The reporting doesn't seem much different than it was in the dark days of last January or a year ago. We are obsessed.

Covid is now institutionised in the collective mindset and it will take a great effort to unwind it. The media isn't helping.

Yes but I happen to know that road deaths are less than 2000 per year so when someone "quotes" 200 per day it jumps out a bit.

John

[Lootman]

Or you could use the real numbers

Death by Road accidents <5 per day.

Literary license. CK's point and my tongue-in-cheek endorsement of it, was that the news cycle has not adjusted to the dramatic fall in cases and deaths. The reporting doesn't seem much different than it was in the dark days of last January or a year ago. We are obsessed.

Covid is now institutionised in the collective mindset and it will take a great effort to unwind it. The media isn't helping.

Yes but I happen to know that road deaths are less than 2000 per year so when someone "quotes" 200 per day it jumps out a bit.

Sigh. Again, not relevant to the point being made, any more than the infectious versus not-infectious tangent. Like I said, the reporting is skewed, and the results of that bias can be seen here and elsewhere.

Oddly i have not noticed the same kind of media skew in the US which has similar Covid and vaccination stats to the UK. There the reporting is much more upbeat. There is the sense there that they have this thing beat rather than the UK view that nothing has really changed and that any day now the plague will return. Maybe we Brits just enjoy misery whilst Americans are endlessly optimistic.

You also see this reflected in policy. In the US planes and hotels are full again, bars and restaurants are open, people are going on holiday, hotels never closed. By comparison the UK is being almost ponderously slow to open up. Although it did amuse me this week seeing some people sitting outside a restaurant eating pizza in the rain.

[zico]

Lootman and CK are correct in saying an all-causes UK daily death rate of 1,500 should get far more media attention, as this equates to about 5 million deaths per annum giving an average UK life expectancy of 13-14 years! Methinks days and weeks are being interchanged.

[murraypaul]

Oddly i have not noticed the same kind of media skew in the US which has similar Covid and vaccination stats to the UK. There the reporting is much more upbeat. There is the sense there that they have this thing beat rather than the UK view that nothing has really changed and that any day now the plague will return. Maybe we Brits just enjoy misery whilst Americans are endlessly optimistic.

You also see this reflected in policy. In the US planes and hotels are full again, bars and restaurants are open, people are going on holiday, hotels never closed. By comparison the UK is being almost ponderously slow to open up. Although it did amuse me this week seeing some people sitting outside a restaurant eating pizza in the rain.

The US also has about 5 times the per-capita covid case rate, and slightly more than that worse per-capita covid death rate.

So while the message from the media might be more positive, the facts are not.

[redsturgeon]

Sigh. Again, not relevant to the point being made, any more than the infectious versus not-infectious tangent. Like I said, the reporting is skewed, and the results of that bias can be seen here and elsewhere.

You can sigh all you like but be careful, apparently 200 deaths a day are caused by sighing on the internet...

John

[XFool]

Literary license. CK's point and my tongue-in-cheek endorsement of it, was that the news cycle has not adjusted to the dramatic fall in cases and deaths. The reporting doesn't seem much different than it was in the dark days of last January or a year ago. We are obsessed.

Covid is now institutionised in the collective mindset and it will take a great effort to unwind it. The media isn't helping.

Yes but I happen to know that road deaths are less than 2000 per year so when someone "quotes" 200 per day it jumps out a bit.

Sigh. Again, not relevant to the point being made...

Unless one is old fashioned enough to think facts actually matter.

...any more than the infectious versus not-infectious tangent.

Yeah. I mean what does the concept "infectious" have to offer when we are faced with a worldwide infectious pandemic?
(To answer my own question. As we have seen demonstrated over and over again, apparently very little to a surprising range of people)

Like I said, the reporting is skewed, and the results of that bias can be seen here and elsewhere.

"Do not adjust your perception, there is a fault in reality"?

Oddly i have not noticed the same kind of media skew in the US which has similar Covid and vaccination stats to the UK.

Oddly, I am unsurprised.

There the reporting is much more upbeat. There is the sense there that they have this thing beat rather than the UK view that nothing has really changed and that any day now the plague will return. Maybe we Brits just enjoy misery whilst Americans are endlessly optimistic.

So it's a different kind of "skew"?

You also see this reflected in policy. In the US planes and hotels are full again, bars and restaurants are open, people are going on holiday, hotels never closed. By comparison the UK is being almost ponderously slow to open up. Although it did amuse me this week seeing some people sitting outside a restaurant eating pizza in the rain.

Remind us - how many have died from COVID in the world's strongest and most technically advanced nation? (Not to mention all those superb private medical facilities)