Read on Twitter
Apropos of this point and for my own edification, I'm going to use this thread to collect links to stories or other information about how the coronavirus-data sausage gets made, and how that shapes what we see in it. https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1262089315695329283
First up is this piece by @alexismadrigal and @yayitsrob on differences in how U.S. states tally coronavirus stats, and what that means for what they seem to show and how they compare to each other. (Note how political considerations play a role.) https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/covid-19-tests-combine-virginia/611620/
Next up is this @washingtonpost piece from a few weeks ago on Brazil's data, which almost certainly undercounts the scope of the epidemic there by far. I gather this still holds true. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronavirus-brazil-testing-bolsonaro-cemetery-gravedigger/2020/04/22/fe757ee4-83cc-11ea-878a-86477a724bdb_story.html
Here's @AP today on discrepancies in Mexico's count of deaths from COVID-19, according to a new report from an NGO there. https://apnews.com/d456600cfbce4334367f1d1445bc928f
Another one from @yayitsrob and @alexismadrigal, on peculiar discrepancies between the CDC's tally of coronavirus tests and what the states themselves are reporting. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/cdc-publishing-covid-19-test-data/611764/
And here's a deep dive into Russia's coronavirus stats. "We will probably never know the real figures. Or, as one of our colleagues joked, we’ll find out only in about 30 years on HBO." https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/05/08/russia-is-boasting-about-low-coronavirus-deaths-the-numbers-are-deceiving-a70220
In Ecuador--and probably many other poorer countries--COVID-19 cases and deaths are undercounted because the healthcare system lacks the capacity, especially in rural areas. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-ecuador-doctors-wi/rural-ecuador-faces-coronavirus-outbreak-without-doctors-idUSKBN22W1Q9
Corroboration from @AP of claims that the coronavirus toll in Mexico is much higher than official stats show, probably at least twice as high. "The hospitals are full. The areas holding the bodies are now completely filled up.” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-mexico-funeralhome/mexican-funeral-homes-face-horrific-unseen-coronavirus-toll-idUSKBN22W2VG
Another doozie from @alexismadrigal and @yayitsrob: "The [CDC] is conflating the results of two different types of coronavirus tests, distorting several important metrics and providing the country with an inaccurate picture of the state of the pandemic." https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/cdc-and-states-are-misreporting-covid-19-test-data-pennsylvania-georgia-texas/611935/
Yemen is another poor country where official data badly underestimate the pandemic's toll, only in this case it's not just lack of capacity; political rivalries also appear to be playing a role. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-yemen/coronavirus-catastrophe-unfolding-in-south-yemen-medical-charity-msf-idUSKBN22X1KK
One important source of noise in COVID-19 data is inaccuracy in the tests for it. This @PopSci piece does a nice job discussing current conditions on that front. https://www.popsci.com/story/science/covid-test-inaccuracies/
China's coronavirus toll is surprisingly low. This @100Reporters piece from a week ago discusses a leaked database which implies that China has had an order of magnitude more COVID cases than its official statistics show. https://100r.org/2020/05/china-coronavirus/
From @maggiekb1 at @FiveThirtyEight, a great and thorough look at how cause of death is determined, and why this implies that COVID deaths in the U.S. are almost certainly undercounted in real time. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-deaths/
. @AP on the pandemic's toll in Manaus, Brazil, where deaths are running 3 times as high as usual, but "due to a lack of testing, just 5% of the more than 4,300 burials performed in April and May were confirmed cases of COVID-19." https://apnews.com/54423b73d8be5fbc2a491bcc60f10285
This, on Mexico, is the first piece I've seen on how the pandemic can indirectly cause excess deaths, too. “We have had many of what we call ‘dumb deaths.’ It’s not the virus that is killing them. It’s the lack of proper care.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/world/americas/virus-mexico-doctors.html
In Indonesia, antibody testing in one region suggests the virus is already spreading widely and fast, but extremely low testing rates overall mean the national numbers remain low, too. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/world/asia/indonesia-coronavirus-surge.html
One takeaway from all these pieces is that, at present, broad cross-national comparisons of COVID-19 epidemics are nearly worthless. In many cases, uncertainty around the true toll is so high that even just rank ordering is inappropriate.
Another is that the uncertainty skews hard in one direction. While there are errors of commission (e.g., false-positive tests, mislabeling deaths as COVID-related), they are generally swamped by errors of omission (e.g., lack of testing, political pressure to suppress count).
Here's another from @washingtonpost on what analysis of excess deaths tells us about the scale of this pandemic in the U.S. "It’s clear that the burden is quite a bit higher than reported totals," but there's a lot of regional variation, too. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/investigations/coronavirus-excess-deaths-may/
Another important but hard-to-measure aspect of this pandemic: excess deaths caused by behavioral changes in response to COVID. Here, experts estimate tens of thousands of added deaths from breast and colorectal cancers over the coming decade. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/06/18/nations-cancer-chief-warns-delays-cancer-care-are-likely-result-thousands-extra-deaths-coming-years/
"'Numbers in some ways instill this sense of comfort. But then on the other hand, they can be wrong. And they can be wrong for lots of different reasons.'" Nice look at the people and work behind this resource that touches on the noisiness of the data. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/johns-hopkins-tracker/2020/06/29/daea7eea-a03f-11ea-9590-1858a893bd59_story.html
Tens of thousands of excess deaths in U.S. this year are probably "collateral toll" of patients who didn't seek or receive timely care during pandemic, new @washingtonpost analysis shows. And we can expect a lot more of this. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/investigations/coronavirus-excess-deaths-heart/
First addition to this thread in a while: more evidence that Russia's official coronavirus stats are politicized junk, and another reminder that simple cross-national comparisons of COVID stats are often junk, too (b/c this pattern isn't unique to Russia). https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/dagestan-russia-covid-count-mortality/2020/08/01/c8533220-cdc8-11ea-99b0-8426e26d203b_story.html
