Lying With Statistics

Yesterday Townhall posted an article about the recent media hysteria about the coronavirus. The virus is serious, and we need to use common sense in dealing with it, but unwarranted hysteria is not common sense.

The article reports:

There was a COVID death spike last week. Run for your lives! Put your masks back on—and be afraid. That was the narrative the liberal media peddled last week because without Trump around no one watches anything they report. We’ve reached peak hysteria over the Delta variant, which isn’t more lethal, nor does it make you sicker. The reports from an internal CDC memo that suggests otherwise should be ignored; it was rejected by peer review.

The article reports some background information on the death spike as reported  by The New York Post:

A massive 300 percent hike in nationwide COVID-19 deaths recorded Friday by Johns Hopkins University was skewed by states dumping data – that in one case dated back as far as last spring, according to a report.

The university, which has been a trusted source of coronavirus information since the start of the pandemic, reported that US deaths surged from 321 on Thursday to 891 on Friday, as the Delta variant quickly spreads throughout much of the country.

Florida was responsible for a huge chunk of the increase, with 409 of Friday’s death toll coming from that state, according to The Daily Mail. However, Florida only releases weekly data on Friday, making the day-to-day totals reported by the university unclear and overblown, the outlet said.

Figures released by Delaware also added to the surging daily increase, as that state announced 130 new deaths Friday, the tabloid reported. The dramatic figure was misleading because those deaths actually occurred between mid-May 2020 and late last month, and were added after The First State reviewed death certificates, according to the article.

Data from Michigan, which only releases statistics biweekly, also reportedly added to the distorted total.

The true day-to-day increase of nationwide COVID-19 deaths was actually only 2.5 percent, according to the outlet.

Somehow I don’t expect the mainstream media fact-checkers to bother to fact-check the original claim of a 300 percent increase in deaths. Any increase in deaths is not a good thing, but being truthful would help. All of us need to learn to be our own fact-checkers.