Numbers

I haven't written much about the virus because 1) it's already being so widely covered I don't have much to add, 2) I don't have any special insight about it and 3) it's mostly depressing. (Of course, I've stopped writing about everything lately.) So this isn't really about the virus, it's more about the coverage, which is often surprisingly bad--presumably because many reporters don't understand numbers.

California has been doing fairly well, at least compared to many other high population states, especially in the northeast.  However, Los Angeles County is the worst hit section of California, with a quarter of the population yet half the cases.

Particularly frustrating is how often the numbers seem to be getting better only to get worse again.  In fact, this has happened so regularly there has to be some explanation--perhaps the release of official numbers are done differently by the authorities on the weekdays versus the weekend.

Unfortunately, the media coverage (at least what I read) is often all but useless in explaining any trends.  They dutifully report the latest numbers, but offer no context.  The two main numbers are new cases and deaths.  New cases requires interpretation--for instance, presumably, the more testing, the more new cases will be caught.  Deaths also require context, since, if nothing else, it's a lagging indicator.

But then we get headlines like this: "LA County Coronavirus Cases, Deaths Tick Upward..."

I thought they might be referring to a trend--more new cases than before, more deaths than before--but no, they simply mean the number of overall cases and deaths since we started counting has increased.  Well, that's how numbers work. Until new cases and fatalities go to zero, the overall numbers will keep going up.

Even with all the data it's hard to understand what's happening.  But when the stories are done without respect to trends, it's almost better to have no reporting than bad reporting.