COVID-19 Stats vs Reality in USA

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics" Mark Twain 

August 1898
Illustration by Peter Newell from COSMOPOLITAN

The early reporting of COVID-19 Statistics in the U.S.A. got off to a ragged start, with everyone pulling together to try help reduce the effects of the virus. Some states were apparently panicked for good reason; the effects were fast and serious. 

After a few months things got under better control and the over-hyped disaster effects were reduced, for example the Federally-supplied mobile and naval hospital resources were not as badly needed as originally feared. 

Then the politics began. 

 Despite all the massive and extra-ordinary efforts of the Trump Administration, his political oponents began sniping at him saying, in effect, that his administration, and by extension, President Trump himself, had mismanaged the recovery. They shout the same thing more often today.

It appears that, for whatever reasons, the majority of the US Media not only promotes those political obfuscations and lies of Trump's opponents, but also goes further to promote the negative aspects of the recovery and ignore for the most part the positives, especially in the statistics. 

Could it be that the entire US Media is innumerate? Hardly, they are obviously, for the most part, not numerically challenged but have a serious tilt to the Left. They clearly know what they are not reporting: anything that makes the Economy and Trump look better.

So, it appears that the Democrat Party and the majority of the US Media are willing to risk economic hardship for those least able to withstand it, making the US economy appear or actually become worse by closing restaurants, sports activities and schools before the November Election in order to decrease Donald Trump’s chances at winning re-election. That is far worse than just political; in my view it is an ethical crime against the citizenry, if not an actual one.

What statistical lies are being promoted today? 

Sample Statistics from WorldOMeters.info as of July 15, 2020

Area	Death Rate per MM pop.	Total    Deaths	New    Deaths
Sweden	553	5,583	1
U.S.A.	423	140,144	1,001
New York	1,672	32,518	23
Pennsylvania	549	7,023	42
Florida	210	4,521	112
Texas	125	3,625	154
Georgia	291	3,091	37
California	186	7,361	126
Washington	187	1,425	21

In Pennsylvania today, for instance, the concept that more reported positive COVID test results in one county foretells serious problems in other counties even ones 300 miles distant. But, Governor Wolf, who is a MIT Ph.D,, says we have to revert the entire state to more restrictive condition, despite the above fact and the additional ones that the death rates from Covid are the lowest in months with no significant increase evident.

CBS News reported the other evening that the herd immunity experiment in Sweden was fatally flawed because the death rate was an enormous rate of about 540, or so, per million of population. Yes, that is about 20% higher than the U.S.A.overall. However, it is almost exactly the same as the situation in Pennsylvania and lower than 9 other US States. New York State fared a lot worse than Sweden and has largely recovered.

The southern US states and California have not come close to reaching the fatality levels experienced by Sweden or northeastern US states, despite the fearful forecasts from the media.

Check the data on WorldOMeters.info if you have any doubts. Their reporting is timely to within about 1 day and presented in a format that can be readily understood by any adult in the U.S.A. who is literate. Both you and I can drill down to uncover a lot of the true data, at least as true and accurate as reported by those charged with doing so. 

Therein lies another problem, for instance in May, when trying to find the true data on Senior deaths from COVID-19 , I found a significant number of states, including Pennsylvania, that did not report summary demographics by age. Race, yes. Age, no. They do now, in totals, but not in percentages.