Witnessing PandemicMain MenuAboutTala ClowerSabrina DelMonacoEmily Fiorentinohttps://www.instagram.com/p/B94MQNSlams/Remy GajewskiHenry HicksMegan MaguirePip Massey RenardPerry MayoGilbert NakayamaMaya PearlAn Escape: COVID-19 and Social MediaMichael PlevinPolitical Blunder and Epidemiological MismanagementLena RichMaisie SheidlowerMeredith Warden
Unequal Distribution of Corona-virus infections and How Politicians Fudge the Data
12020-05-13T23:34:12+00:00Michael Plevin6a910a84f44c2ab8e83afea401e5f40a32bc5f41221The Fake Plateau: How Fiddling With Statistics Hides Corona's Forward Marchplain2020-05-13T23:34:12+00:00Michael Plevin6a910a84f44c2ab8e83afea401e5f40a32bc5f41The current administration, and many state governors, are pushing a false narrative of the current pandemic situation in which the total number of cases and deaths has plateaued if not, optimistically, trended down, and that the situation is on the mend. This is a lie... and a self serving political one at that. The plateauing of the current infection and fatality rates are due to the rapid rate of infections once the virus hit, or hits as the predictive case may be, critical mass in densely concentrated urban areas. They are not, as the current administration would postulate, due to us beating the virus in any way. If one removes the aforementioned urban areas from the infection rate it continues to tick up at the same inexorable pace and the fact of the matter is that simply removing NYC from the national figures has the same effect. Thus, what these politicians are, in effect, doing, is removing all the stops on the spread right as it begins to effect those who will, in many ways, be hardest hit, but those people who make up their voting base, rural America. The idea that the rate of infection is higher and faster in more densely populated urban areas is basic epistemology and ignoring that fact is myopic to say the least, but that's exactly what we're doing. Nor should the rapid rate of infection in cities be seen as a good getting it over and done with type thing. Not only does this place greater strain on the healthcare system but because of the rate at which it is overloaded it means that the fatality rate is higher because more people have to be triaged out due to limited medical resources... in the places where our healthcare system is strongest. All of this is bad and the fact that we're lifting restrictions is like closing a parachute after jumping out of a plane while you're still thousands of feat in the air because you have started to slow down.