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Comment by Grim-444 | Hacker News Reader

This is apparently what counts as journalism nowadays. A collection of anecdotes and emotion filled stories. For an article that's supposedly talking about whether Sweden made the correct decisions or not, note how many paragraphs you have to read before a single number/piece of data is even mentioned. But they have lots of heart-wrenching stories about 80 year old grandmas getting sick. Ironically, they use this emotion-based strategy in an article about how Sweden decided not govern via emotion and panic and instead use facts/data/logic/reason instead.

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It is infuriating to see an article like this without a single chart, graph, or anything referencing actual statistical analysis.

We have an entire class of elites who despite graduating from elite schools are statistically and often mathematically illiterate who are funneled directly into the top tier media companies. Like most quantitatively illiterate humans, they think in terms of stories, anecdotes, and emotions.

Journalism like this is why people on hiking trails wear masks, and healthy 20-something people are acting like they are at equivalent risk as nursing home residents.

It's embarrassing that the entire western world has allowed media institutions filled with liberal arts grads to shape our entire response to the virus.

Is it statistical illiteracy or something else?

I think it's because journalism has become all about the journalist and their narrative and social signaling.

Even when data is used, it's not for the purpose of dispassionate analysis. Using data is just a way to identify yourself in the "expert" "science-based" camp.

there is a real issue with "common sense" in the world atm. I mean look at this... the Australian Gov had to put a FAQ answer up about if the vaccine will connect you to the internet: https://www.health.gov.au/initiatives-and-programs/covid-19-...

how utterly ludicrous is this shit?!?

Great analysis. It's sad to see how easily the general public is influenced with poorly presented numbers. Take for instance the absolute number of positive PCR tests in the Netherlands, used as a benchmark despite ever increasing number of tests since the start of the pandemic.

I'm not sure I understand. The absolute number of positive test cases is a best guess, a temperature gauge, no absolute truth. The true number of cases is unknown and estimated to be 1.5-3 times the number of positive cases (from sero-prevalence studies).

Contrary to popular belief policy decisions are not made on cases alone, but percentage of positive tests, hospital capacities, fatalities, test & trace capacities etc. taken together.

No they are not. The presentations designed to get government to approve measures are public, anyone can see them.

Policy decisions are based on bullshit and fraudulent predictions. The current lockdown was started on December 15 based on a bullshit prediction, then the curfew was started based on another bullshit prediction that was even falsified before it was shown, and then everything was extended based on bullshit, first the statement ‘we need to go on longer so we can see if it works’ and then ‘we are sure it works’ and then ‘well we will never know if it works, but it’s scary to stop’.

It’s bullshit through and through. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Presenting the number of positive cases without normalizing for the number of tests taken and population is just dishonest.

Hopefully those policy decisions are taking more into account but when communicating the decisions I've found that only the scary numbers are used as justification.

Have you watched the "technical briefings" to the House of Representatives in the Netherlands? The same graphs as seen on the corona dashboard [1] are used to persuade politicians to implement policies based on absolute PCR test numbers. Despite an increase in weekly PCR tests from June's 50k to November's 260K [2]. I'm sure other data is used but this seems to be a major part of their argument.

[1] https://coronadashboard.rijksoverheid.nl/landelijk/positief-... [2] https://ggdghor.nl/actueel-bericht/weekupdate-cijfers-corona...

I could not agree more. I kept scrolling waiting to see some tables or graphs.

Sweden seems to be a COVID Rorschach test. Whatever you believe the correct response is/was you can point to Sweden to support your point. You can see it in this thread. They didn't lock down and they were fine! They didn't lock down and they had a bunch of needless deaths!

I had a similar reaction. The article definitely doesn't follow the Inverted Pyramid approach (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism) ).

This is a chart of age-corrected excess mortality between the least affected European countries for 2020. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyH8yiZWgAkgt6k.jpg

I agree, this is pure emotion, because the facts tell a different story they don't like, so they use speech, words & fear instead of data.

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