Math Murder in Media Manufactured Madness

By Bhaskaran Raman

For 2.5 years since the declaration of the Covid-19 pandemic, people have felt extreme fear. Reason, rationality, basic math and logic have taken a severe beating. This book documents the math murder in the mad fear largely manufactured by relentless propaganda in the media. It is meant for those who want to reflect on the planet-wide panic surrounding Covid-19, to examine if it was justified, to sift truth from propaganda, to learn how we can possibly prevent such mistakes in the future. It is especially meant for the next generation, who were affected least by the virus itself, yet affected most by the irrational measures in the name of public health. They must know how the adults on the planet abandoned reason for madness, rationality for fear, and basic math for obvious absurdity. Most parts are meant to be understandable with only a secondary-school or high-school mathematics background.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blue Rose Publishers
• Release date: Nov 22, 2022

Book preview

Preface

I wrote the above poem Fear of a Thousand Deaths after experiencing around me as to what extreme fear could do to human behaviour.

Since the declaration of the Covid-19 pandemic on 11 March 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO) [WHO20a], the overriding emotion felt by most people around the world has been fear. And that too the fear of death, the most primal emotion common to most higher forms of life. The emotion which can give wings, or that which can turn the feet of the fastest beings into lead.

It turns out that reason and rationality are rendered rare in a state of mortal fear. Specifically, basic mathematics and logic are forgotten when such fear takes over. This book documents the various facets of such math murder, in the 21 years since March 2020. In such a state, people have tended to believe anything someone says from a position of authority, even if it is as absurd as 2+2=5. There has been a complete meltdown of the masses due to mortal fear of a coronavirus microbe. Furthermore, there has been enormous moral panic as well, especially in social media echo chambers, with all aspects of normal life labeled as a danger to the very survival of the human race. Such madness has been largely manufactured by relentless propaganda in the media. Thus the title of this book: Math Murder in Media Manufactured Madness.

• Was there a need for such a level of fear? Or were metrics chosen to magnify & mislead? This is the topic of the first part of this book titled Metrics to Magnify & Mislead.

• Much of the panic has been due to lack of perspective and com- parison. This is the topic of the second part of the book Can you Compare with Corona?.

• The media has constantly sought to play up fear through exag- geration. As aptly described by some articulate person on social media: if it scares, it airs, if it bleeds, it leads. The third part of this book Exulting in Extreme Exaggeration documents some of these hyperboles.

• Why have math & logic taken such a severe beating? The answer

to this is not hard to find. Debate is the method of science, and it has been sorely absent throughout the Covid-19 response. The last part of the book, Diligent Debate is Due, issues an open call for open debate on any of the aspects mentioned in this book.

It is often said:

True character is revealed during adversity

Looking at the world’s response to Covid-19, the above could be

enhanced to:

True character is revealed during adversity, actual or assumed

… for in a state of mortal fear, there appears to have been no room to rationally think whether such fear was warranted in the first place among the vast majority of the population.

Who this book meant for: This book is meant for those who want to reflect on the nearly 21 years of planet-wide panic surrounding Covid-19, to examine if it was justified, to sift truth from propaganda, to learn how

we can possibly prevent such mistakes in the future. It is especially meant for the next generation, who were affected least by the virus itself, yet affected most by the irrational measures in the name of public health. They must know how the adults on the planet abandoned reason for madness, rationality for fear, and basic math for obvious absurdity. Most parts are meant to be understandable with only a secondary-school or high-school mathematics background.

Part - I

Metrics to Magnify & Mislead

1 Personal Probability 100-Percent

2 Disease Dependent Denominator

3 Regular Reports of Recovery Rate

4 Counterproductive Covid Case Counts

5 Days for Disease Doubling

6 False Flag against Fearsome Flu

1. Personal Probability 100-Percent

Probabilty (of death) is 100% if you get it (Covid-19)

Probability as a mathematical concept is generally introduced early in secondary school. Weather predictions such as 80% chance of rain tomorrow are common on the daily news. People use such weather predictions to plan various things such as what dress to wear, whether or not to carry an umbrella, details of any outdoor trips, etc. So the concept of probability is well understood by most common people.

People understand the notions of risk and probability not only for everyday decisions, but also in life versus death situations. For instance, most people would have to make medical decisions for themselves or for their loved ones: e.g. should I go for that angioplasty or try some medication or diet-control?

However, in the context of Covid-19, an atmosphere of extreme planet-wide panic was created such that people were induced to forget their grasp of risk and probability. Many conversations I sought to have, to really probe and understand what exactly is the risk of Covid-19 death, in comparison with other risks people face everyday, used to end with the following sensational claim: it (Covid-19 death) is 100% probability if it happens to you. This sought to imply and justify the prevalent stay-home-stay-safe messaging [Mor+20].

Figure 1.1: Personal Probability 100-Percent. With fear of Covid-19 highly magnified, people lost all sense of threat perception and balancing of risks. This was the first all-pervasive math murder via media’s fear propaganda.

Not only was the 100% extreme grossly incorrect, the other extreme of stay-home-stay-safe was also overly simplistic. Staying home for extended periods of time, several months or years, was:

• simply impossible for the majority of the population which cannot work-from-home,

• extremely harmful for mental health, especially for youngsters and children [Vin+22],

• harmful for overall health in the long run since it made people as well as societies a whole lot poorer [Jen20],

• harmful even from the limited perspective of Covid-19 risk

– lack of exercise meant worsened diabetes and obesity, which are known huge Covid-19 comorbidities [Kom+21]

– reduced sunlight meant lowered Vitamin-D levels, which correlates with higher risk of Covid-19 death [Dro+22].

The comparison with lightning in the picture alongside the chapter heading is not an exaggeration. For children, the risk of Covid-19 death is indeed comparable to that of being struck by lightning, as shown in Chance (per million): Covid-19 death in children vs lightning strike

I heard, and also felt in people’s behaviour, the 100% if it happens to you stance, especially among highly educated engineers and scientists, even professors from elite higher education institutions. But then, this 100% if it happens to you is true of any risk or cause of probable death: say, other infectious diseases like say tuberculosis (TB), lifestyle diseases such as heart ailments, or risk of traffic accident while on a road trip, or even the risk of drowning while in a swimming pool or at the beach.

Thus the math murder in the context of fear of Covid-19 began with people losing all grasp of probability and risk assessment. But why is the personal probability 100 percent stance taken only for Covid-19 and not for other risks? The answer lies in the clear overstatement of the threat of Covid-19, and incessant media propaganda of the same. This also explains as to why the work-from-home educated class of people were more susceptible to the personal probability 100 percent stance: they relied upon news channels as opposed to personal experience for their assessment of risk of Covid-19.

We next look at a key facet of the overstatement of Covid-19 threat.

2 Disease Dependent Denominator

Why did people lose their sense of risk management in the context of Covid-19? The origin of this can be traced back to the vastly overstated threat of Covid-19, since the early days. The key metric to magnify & mislead the public was that of Case Fatality Rate (CFR).

The CFR is defined as the deaths caused by a