The No-Nonsense Guide for Americans

No-Nonsense American’s Guide to Pandemic Numbers and How to Tell If We’re Over or Underestimating Death

Let’s walk through the relevant facts. Then you decide if the deaths are over- or underestimated.

A man wearing a mask in 1918. Western Neighborhoods Project

As a thoroughly stubborn albeit endearing medical doctor informed me, “garbage in equals garbage out.” I could not agree more, but we must identify “junk data” related to the spread of COVID and our own thinking. We believe we know intent and understand what others are thinking or what motivates them.

Consistently, we are poor at judges of what others think, even of those closest to us. We also believe our true selves are better than others and assume that we would do better in similar situations.

Although no one denies that hospital reimbursements for COVID-19 deaths are 20% greater than the average Medicare payment for respiratory infections — the reasons and details could be their own post—the assumption this led to large-scale fraud is a big claim to make on a hunch.