The coronavirus “pandemic” affects all of our day-to-day lives.
The policies and measurements that are being created in this time are establishing a more authoritarian political climate for all of us.
Basis for all discussions around that is data.
I’ve studied mathematics at the Technical University Vienna and everyone with a little bit of understanding of statistics knows, that it’s super difficult to gather unbiased data and that published data has to be looked at carefully because it’s very susceptible to human error and manipulation.
Now let’s have a look at the data available to us.
Our subjective perception of what’s going on in the world is largely influenced by what topics and in what (emotional) way they are distributed by mainstream media.
It’s always helpful to look at things from a more distant and rational perspective to put things in relation.
As of today, according to WHO data, globally we have 233,503,524 covid cases with 4,777,503 deaths related to C-19. The current world population according to worldometers.info is 7,897,283,895.
Let’s compare the number of cases to the total of the global population:
Comparison of C-19 cases against global population
So the percentage of people worldwide who got infected with C-19 so far is 2.956%.
(Be aware that the circles do not deliver a perspective on the proportion but a comparison of the numbers.)
Now let’s compare the number of C-19 deaths to the total of the global population:
Comparison of C-19 deaths against global population
The segment of C-19 deaths compared to the total population is not even visible anymore and the percentage of people worldwide who died from or with C-19 so far is 0.060%.
Ok but how about the comparison of C-19 deaths to the total number of deaths in the population?
First, it’s not so easy to get data on the 2020 deaths.
According to knoema.com and macrotrends.net the 2020 world death rate was 7.6 (deaths occurring per year per 1000 population) which would result in a total of 60,019,357 deaths worldwide in 2020. According to worldometers.info the number of global deaths this year so far is 44,401,431.
This would result in a number of 104,420,788 worldwide deaths for 2020 and 2021 combined.
(macrotrends.net has a note on their website above the data that “All 2020 and later data are UN projections and DO NOT include any impacts of the COVID-19 virus.”.
I don’t really understand why the impact of a virus has any influence in gathering the total number of deaths in a year, but if anybody knows sources with more reliable data, please let me know.)
Comparison of C-19 deaths to worldwide deaths in 2020+2021
How are those numbers generated? Can we trust them?
This is the main issue. We use the numbers to discuss policies and measurements, but can we be certain that those numbers are accurately reported?
How infections with C-19 are diagnosed
There is a wide variety of test which are used to detect infection with the virus. The most common types of tests are:
Molecular tests (PCR tests, viral RNA tests, nucleic acid tests)
Antigen test
I was trying to find data on the accuracy of those tests, but probably due to the large number of producers I was not able to find anything reliable.
Another factor is, that those test, at least in the US, do not have full FDA approval yet. The FDA issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for those tests (as well as for most of the vaccines). That means among other things that long term testing has not yet be completed.
According to the website of Harvard Medical School “The true accuracy of tests for COVID-19 is uncertain”:
How deaths from or with C-19 are counted
To conclude the cause of death for a person is a difficult task. There could be different contributing factors. Since we know about the existence of C-19, it can also be listed as a “contributing factor” on the death certificate.
Usually, authorities count all death certificates where C-19 is listed in any way as a covid death.
This could be a guy dying of a heart attack who was positively tested for C-19. This could also be a late-stage cancer patient with an already short life expectancy who died 15 days earlier because he contracted covid.
In this video (starting at 1:04) Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), was questioned by a member of the United States House of Representatives regarding possible existing incentives for hospitals to report more C-19 cases to receive greater reimbursements or other monetary benefits, which he confirms:
Here the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, Ngozi O. Ezike, explains how covid deaths are classified:
It is difficult to understand how much harm the virus really does to a healthy person. I could not find any numbers on healthy people who had no other medical issues but contracted the disease and died of C-19.
This would be the more interesting number. Because of course, we all know we are a highly unhealthy, sick society - but if an otherwise possibly not harmful virus is perceived as so dangerous and cause such drastic changes of policies and the introduction of severe restrictions to public life, should we not look for blame on the circumstances why exactly we are such a sick society instead of on the virus?
Conclusion
As you could probably notice, there’s a huge difference between your subjective perception and the reality of numbers.
Also, it is hard to understand from the outside, especially with the limited information given to the public, if these numbers are accurate and can be trusted or not.
What I found during my research was is, that it’s extremely difficult to obtain reliable, transparent and comprehensive data about the C-19 “pandemic".
I believe data should be available to everyone in a very easily accessible and transparent form.
As a conclusion, I can not say if these numbers are accurate or not, but I would strongly suggest to everyone to stay skeptical and observe in what way the public perception is influenced by media coverage.