Carol Brown offers American Thinker readers a critique of media reports involving the coronavirus pandemic’s mortality rate.
A book published 66 years ago and still in print is an essential reference for understanding most of the data that you see about the pandemic afflicting the world today. Written by Darrell Huff and illustrated by Irving Geis, How to Lie With Statistics is both sardonic and a serious lesson in the abuse of math for propaganda. Whether or not it was studied by our Trump-hating media anxious to make the US look bad, some of its lessons are being employed.
A few days ago, we learned that the mortality rate from the coronavirus is lower than touted by the “experts.” Much lower. As in, similar to the season flu.
Now, thanks (again) to Matt Margolis at PJ Media, we see that the United States has a comparatively low mortality rate. But downstate New York has the worst.
Curiously, when the media hounded Trump for weeks about testing, they kept screaming about “per capita” testing rates compared to South Korea. But now, you hear not a word about “per capita” rates when it comes to mortality.
Why?
Because the hard numbers make the United States look like it’s fared much worse than the rest of the world. … As Margolis notes, it’s quite easy to see that we’ve done an incredible job. …
… Because our numbers are distorted thanks to Cuomo and de Blasio’s incompetent “leadership,” downstate New York has a disproportionate number of deaths compared to anywhere else in the country. So, Margolis recalculated the list by removing the numbers from downstate New York and making it like a separate country. … [D]ownstate New York is worse than any European country and the United States mortality rate drops.
Follow Carolina Journal Online’s continuing coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. You’ll find the latest stories here.
