Data Cherry Picking 101

A friend sent me the following link — https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pandemic/wisconsin-reports-its-highest-daily-increase-covid-19-cases.

It starts off like this — dates in parentheses added by me.

“Health officials in the midwestern U.S. state of Wisconsin reported a record number of new COVID-19 cases Thursday, (28 May) two weeks after the state Supreme Court struck down a state-wide stay-at-home order issued by the governor and enacted by the state health department.

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services reported 599 new known COVID-19 cases Wednesday, (27 May) with 22 known deaths, the highest recorded daily rise since the pandemic began. The department reports the state had more than 16,460 known cases and 539 known deaths as of Wednesday.”

Well that proves it, doesn’t it?   Removing restrictions has clearly  been a disaster.

No it doesn’t.  This is data cherry picking par excellence — one day’s cases — after a long holiday (Memorial Day)  weekend means nothing.  The ‘spike’ is an artifact of how cases are reported.

Here are the daily new COVID-19 cases from Massachusetts (which has relaxed nothing so far)

24 May 382

25 May 281

26 May 197

27 May 688 

 

QED

Do not forget that there are huge agendas at stake in how data is reported after loosening of the restrictions.  It shouldn’t be that way but it is.

Here are a few apocalyptic predictions about what would happen after Georgia lifted its restrictions 25 April.  Future predictions and definitive statements from these sources should be taken with a grain or more of salt.

From The Atlantic — “Georgia’s Experiment in Human Sacrifice — The state is about to find out how many people need to lose their lives to shore up the economy.” — https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/why-georgia-reopening-coronavirus-pandemic/610882/

 From the Washington Post — https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/21/georgia-leads-race-become-americas-no-1-death-destination/

From MSNBC — https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/georgia-s-kemp-neglected-warn-people-about-his-dangerous-gamble-n1189826

These people (and many others) have a lot of face to lose if nothing happens, and so far nothing has (certainly no spike in cases or deaths).  Expect them to slant the data any way they can to bolster their case.  It is very sad that such an important issue is being dealt with this way.

Here are the latest statistics from Georgia.  Recall that Georgia doesn’t regard their data as solid until 14 days have passed, so that all reports have come in.  That’s why the figures are for 14 May even though today is 28 May.

So here are the latest solid figures from Georgia — which partially lifted restrictions 25 April

Deaths 25 April  38                                    Deaths 14 May 25 (7 day moving averages)

New COVID-19 cases  25 April 740         New COVID19 cases 14 May 603 (7 day moving averages)