Allow Me to Be Annoyed
Anecdotes are not data and your next door neighbor's kid is not necessarily a relevant expert
So and so talked to so and so whose daughter’s boyfriend works in an ER and says this coronavirus stuff is overblown because they have seen only one patient. So and so’s daughter’s best friend is an epidemiologist/oncologist/proctologist/otherologist who says everyone is overreacting and this is just the common cold.
Your anecdote is not data.
The experts can be wrong.
So how do we thread this needle?
We should do it this way: the virus is actually more easily transmitted than the flu and its basic symptoms are more serious than the flu. If you get this virus, you more likely than not are not going to die, but you will be miserable and out of work more likely than not. Many of you will actually be in pain, not just ache.
It is really damn selfish of a lot of people to say “only the old are going to suffer.” Do the ghouls saying this not have parents or grandparents they care about?
Everyone goes into contrarian mode and too often these days the contrary indicator is based on which party is in power and whether you identify with that party or not.
I recommend you read this from an actual ER doctor in Italy dealing with the fall out of the virus.
Dr Macchini spoke candidly of the enormous pressure facing frontline staff in his country - which has reported a total of 463 virus-related deaths and more than 9,000 confirmed cases in just over two weeks.
Seriously, read the whole thing and especially get to this part:
He also stressed the virus does not just affect old people, warning that younger people "end up intubated in intensive care" or "worse in ECMO (a machine for the worst cases, which extracts the blood, re-oxygenates it and returns it to the body, waiting for the organism, hopefully, heal your lungs).
He bitterly scorned people "on social networks who pride themselves on not being afraid and ignoring the rules, complaining because their normal lifestyle habits are 'temporarily' in crisis - all the while an epidemiological disaster is taking place".
But also, please note this — there are 60.48 million people in Italy and only 10,149 of them have gotten this virus. In other words, only about 0.16% of Italians have been diagnosed with the Wuhan virus. But also note this — most cases will not require hospitalization. Also, note that most of those 10,149 infections have occurred in the last ten days.
Are you going to get the Wuhan virus? Probably not.
Is someone you know going to get it? Probably not.
But if you live in urban areas, the odds go up. If you are elderly, the odds go up. And if the media and politicians don’t talk about it to explain what is going on, the odds go up even more.
If we play our cards right, in six months we can all talk about how everybody overhyped this and blew it out of proportion, but we’ll be able to do so because measures were taken to stop its spread.
And, naturally, should it mutate and flare up again or should China accidentally release another of these viruses into the wild, twice as many people will be dismissive of the next wave because they attributed lack of spread this time to hype instead of to aggressive measures.
By the time the apocalyptic plague does come, no one will believe it is coming until they are closing their eyes in death. That’s the way these things work. Y2K begat the overhype of the next thing begat the next thing begat this, which will begat something worse and even more dismissed by the public.
Random aside: in a 24 hour news cycle world, why does the news focus even less of multiple stories? Everything comes back to Trump or the virus or both and nothing else really gets covered. In a world with a billion TV channels and 24 hour news, we know less now than when we just had ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS.
People are stupid. The experts are often wrong. But we can all wash our hands, avoid crowds, prepare for the worst, and hope for the best.
Just please don’t dismiss this as no big deal. Also, please don’t treat this as a virus that is going to cause everyone to fall over dead.
It’s worse than and more contagious than the flu. It is not a mass global outbreak of Ebola.
That’s the end of my rant.
Parting shot — who knew the New York Times was racist:
I confess to having a more jaundiced view of the value of anecdotes. When used to populate a dog and pony show, I'm not a fan. I would not mind if the State of the Union went back to being a letter. The Speaker couldn't tear it up without making sure a coly was kept, it would have to be rebutted formally. On the other hand, in random statistics, every anecdote is a data point (my degree is in physics, hence the digression). When commentary is purported to be fact, sometimes the only evidence available is anecdotal. Yet, find more anecdotes than you would expect based on the commentary, and they tend to indicate that the commentary isn't necessarily reliable. I wouldn't use seat belts for a long time, because my brother was involved in a collision which crushed one side of the car completely flat roof to floorboard, and would likely have caused his death had he not been thrown across the passenger compartment. Then I learned just how much of a "freak" (i.e., anomalous) accident that was, and I wear them whether or not there are police watching or belt alarms. As humans, we go with what we have. One of my daughters constantly hears negative things about the President, and does not want to know about even-handed judgment of the news. I have tried to tell her that opinion purported to be opinion is honest, but opinion asserted to be fact is an effort to deceive, in order to explain to her that liking or not liking Trump is not an indicator of one's honesty. Finally, after I explained the Joe Biden "re-elect" video clip, she finally said "I appreciate that." Maybe I am in the road to getting her to read your columns. (in the longer version of the re-elect Trump clip, Biden seemed to be trying to say that wanting to re-elect Trump is the Democrats' goal . . . if they keep on with business as usual. I explained that he still stumbled, but that it isn't necessary for people to assign more senility than is warranted)
So here’s a sentence of yours that I had to read three times “If you get this virus, you more likely than not are not going to die, but you will be miserable and out of work...etc.” The point is important “you most likely will not die from Coronavirus but you may be very sick.” But you buried It in double negatives that could easily be misinterpreted. Might add to the confusion. Fewer words with greater precision and impact are needed these days! Just sayin😘