I am no expert on viruses, nor do I claim to be. I’ll leave the medical care to the experts. I am simply an advocate for critical thinking, and Americans need more critical thinking in the age of COVID-19 (CV19).

There is so much data available, and yet the data continues to change daily. Changing data means you must allow your perspectives to adapt as we get more and more data. What we once thought to be true will likely end up being false and vice versa.

Statistics can be a bit terrifying without context. For example, if I said there is a 50% mortality rate, you’d probably be pretty shocked by that amount. But what if I told you the denominator in that 50% calculation was 10? The statistic is not wrong. Our question should be, “Will the denominator and/or numerator increase?” If the denominator increases drastically, because of, let’s say, increased testing efforts, and the numerator increases at a slower rate, then the percentage will shrink. This is one reason why it’s best to gather as much data as possible before committing finite resources to a problem that may not be correctly sized.

Take for example this article from StatNews titled, A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data.

The article illustrates why quality data, not just any data, is important when you’re trying to make good decisions.

Most people recognize that you need quality data for good decision-making. What people lose sight of, particularly in a (potential) pandemic, is that you must not allow emotion to control how you make decisions.

Nobody knows what the outcome of all of this will be. I fear that when all is said and done we will look at the final data and realize that the economic destruction wasn’t warranted. If that happens, then the next time a truly terrible disease hits society, people may be deaf to the public health warnings.

Stay healthy.