Sorting Through Information Overload

There has been a saying that makes the rounds in economic circles from time to time – it states that there are lies, damned lies and statistics. The reference is to the fact that one can make almost any point one desires to make by manipulating the data. In truth these manipulations are not even lies – it is a matter of how one chooses to look at a given problem or situation. Might as well employ another parable at this point – that of the blind men and the elephant. Each of them described the animal differently according to what they had in front of them – the guy holding the tail had a very different impression than the guy with the trunk. They were all quite correct but without seeing the whole picture they were all wrong. What does all this have with the assertion the US is now at the epicenter of the outbreak?

The fact is that there are now over 83,000 cases of people with COVID 19 in the US and that is more than has been reported in any other nation – more than China and more than Italy. By itself this fact seems terrifying and seems to promise an impending apocalypse. There are other data points to be aware of.

    The Italian population is much smaller than that of the US – around 60 million vs. around 330 million. There are 261 people per million who have the disease in the US and 1300 per million in Italy. The US basically has more cases because it has more people. The numbers in China are what have been released by the Chinese government and thus far the data that has emerged from China has not been as reliable as would be preferred. There was an attempt to cover up the impact of the virus at the beginning and now it is a matter of trying to keep pace with the data.’

    There is more to the data than just pure numbers as well. The latest report from the CDC confirmed the fact that some elements of the population are more at risk than others. At the time of the most recent study they had examined 4,000 cases reported to the CDC – 31% of the cases, 45% of hospitalizations, 53% of ICU admissions and 80% of deaths had been in the age group of 65+ and the vast majority of these deaths were in senior living units of one kind or another. This latter point is another example of affecting impressions with statistics. There were stories that essentially asserted that senior living was dangerous – just look at the death rate. Better to look at the fact that senior living concentrates the affected population for statistical purposes. One would likely find that death rates for people over 65 would be extremely low at day cares and pre-schools. This would be due to the small number of elderly in that setting and not an invitation to move older adults into a pre-school to reduce their rates of infection.

    The point of this little diatribe is that we are all getting a crash course in the art of statistical manipulation and we need to be a bit more skeptical of those that are making bold assertions based on some carefully selected set of numbers. There are those that are trying to downplay and deny the threat and those that are setting their hair on fire in a blind panic. The facts are there – we have to work at seeing them clearly. It is a hard cold fact that over 83,000 people have contracted the virus and that over 1,000 people have died and this is enough to justify efforts to limit its impact.

As has been pointed out frequently as the COVID 19 crisis unfolded is the number of people that die from the flu each year in the US is between 28,000 and 56,000 – depending on the virulence of that year’s strain. More than 38,000 died in auto accidents and 9,000 from gun violence. The death toll from opioid abuse rises every year. This is not a contest to determine which death rate to be most concerned with. Losing a person to a reckless driver or a random shooting or drug abuse or the flu or to cancer, heart attack or stroke is a tragic moment for the people in their lives – period. The grim reality is that the rest of us are not concerned unless the threat also pertains to us.

The fact is society and government can direct its efforts to halt or reduce any and all of these fatalities if there is sufficient desire. Cars could be made safer with restricted speeds and armor, guns could be banned, drug abuse centers could proliferate and so on. Whether we admit it or not we are balancing the death toll against what it would cost to reduce it. We don’t want cars limited to speeds of five miles per hour and we do not want guns to be banned and seized. We don’t choose to spend a massive amount of money on controlling drug abuse. We essentially accept the death toll.

    Now we face decisions about COVID 19. How much are we willing to spend? If the optimistic assessment holds, we are likely looking at another month of lockdown and social isolation. This has been a devastating blow to the economy with massive unemployment and business losses but if the world starts to return to normal by the end of April there will be a swift recovery. What happens if there is no such improvement and the period of lockdown is thought to last months and months? Can the economy recover from that? Most assessments hold that an extended period of shutdown will cripple the US and world economy and send it into true depression with jobless rates of 20% or 30% and the collapse of entire industries. Will this be a price people will be willing to pay to reduce the fatalities associated with the virus? If we look at other threats it seems logical to assume that there will be a tolerance level accepted for COVID 19 as well.  Then the question becomes what we are willing to spend and what we are willing to do. We don’t ban cars and we don’t limit their speed but we do mandate seat belts and air bags and establish traffic rules to reduce the threat. What measures will be used to limit COVID 19 deaths without shutting the economy down?