To paraphrase Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, "I'm a writer, not a mathematician!"
I got A's in math when I was in school, but I never really had an aptitude for it, nor was it one of my favorite subjects. I was blessed with a great teacher in high school, a gentleman by the name of Russell Stamper, who made learning easy and fun through five classes in four years, but I knew early on that math wasn't going to be my strong suit. I performed well in spelling bees, but not in math bees, which were basically speed-computation contests.
Indeed, as I've gotten older, I find that calculations I could easily do in my head now require pen and paper. And computations that I could quickly solve in writing now call for the use of a calculator.
But I've still retained enough of the knowledge I gleaned under the expert tutelage of the man I still respectfully call Mr. Stamper to know the concepts behind current common societal concerns that are easily explained by math just don't add up.
Years ago, there was a series of books called Something for Dummies, where "Something" was some topic that might be hard to understand or comprehend. The books used simple language to make the complex understandable. So call this lesson "math for covidiots."
I've always been suspicious of the way the threat level of the Wuhan Chinese virus was determined. The metric used to determine a county's color code, number of cases per 100,000 residents, seems skewed to produce panic-inducing results in smaller counties, while downplaying the threat in larger cities. It doesn't reflect reality, nor does it provide a really accurate measure of just how much a community is being impacted by the virus.
The nice, easily-rounded numbers associated with one recent result show that if you take an in-depth look at the figures, using common math concepts I learned more than four decades ago, things aren't as dire as they appear.
One day last week, it was announced that Clay County in southeastern Kentucky was the state's leader, with 73.9 cases per 100,000 residents. For the sake of rounding, let's bump that rate up to 75.
The latest population figures from the United States Census Bureau, from 2019, show Clay County with a population of 19,901. That rounds easily to 20,000.
Now, it's time to do a little math. Both 20,000 and 100,000 are evenly divisible by 5, as is our rounded-up rate of 75. So an incidence rate of 75 translates to an actual number of 15. That means there were, on that day, 15 Kung Flu cases in Clay County out of 20,000 residents.
Next comes figuring of percentages. You determine percentages by cross-multiplying by 100 and then dividing. Divide 1,500 (15 x 100) by 20,000 and you get 0.075 percent.
You read that right. A fraction of 1 percent of the people who live in Clay County have the Kung Flu. Or put another way, only one out of every 1,300 people in the county are positive for what one friend has taken to calling "batfluenza."
When you look at it that way, is there any reason to panic? Does the county's threat level need to be elevated to red, with the potential of again restricting public activities?
We're constantly reminded to "follow the science" on everything from business and event shutdowns to wearing masks to getting the vaccine. Last time I checked, mathematics is a science too. And this particular science suggests that there is much panic over nothing.
I've long maintained that actual percentages would be a much more accurate accounting of just exactly how prevalent the virus is. But those numbers, when examined closely, don't justify the heavy-handed dictatorial measures that have been taken in response. Maybe if 10 percent of a county's population was sick, then there might be a need to panic -- remember that the most liberal estimates indicate that only about 20 percent of the American population has tested positive for the virus, and testing positive doesn't mean you're ill -- but less than one-tenth of 1 percent certainly doesn't warrant it.
"Discernment" is a word I've used with increasing frequency the past 18 months. People really need to take a discerning look at what the government is telling them, and question the information accordingly.
