Commentary: Without context, COVID tallies are misleading
by Jim Downs, Los Angeles Times
Dec 22, 2021
4 minutes
Since the start of the pandemic, public health authorities have been fastidiously counting the number of people infected with the coronavirus. For both the medical profession and the media, these rising figures have been the principal way of framing the pandemic in the U.S.: “124,000 new cases a day,” “802,000 COVID deaths since February 2020.” But this information offers an incomplete picture of the crisis, potentially warping the public’s understanding in ways that could prolong the pandemic and even add to its toll.
What’s missing from the day-to-day conversation is the number of uninfected people and the number of infected people who survive COVID-19.
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