In Mathematics, ‘to count’ is defined as the act of determining the quantity or the total number of objects in a set or a group. It also means to say numbers in order while assigning a value to an item in a group. Based on these definitions, counting would seem like a rather straightforward activity.
All of us have had a great deal of practice at counting. It is one of the first things that children learn how to do at home and then in school, where they spend a great deal of time counting fingers, toes, toys, and birthday candles.
Counting is thus an important activity in daily life, and never more so than in Times of Coronavirus. Every day governments tally up the number of new coronavirus cases and the number of deaths in their respective countries.
Based on those numbers, other disagreeable statistics are also calculated, such as the total of serious or critical cases or deaths per million inhabitants. These figures are published and then compared with those of other countries.
This daily homework assignment has made it glaringly evident that many nations throughout the world must have failed kindergarten. They need to take a refresher course in basic counting.
On 1 May, the post on www.timesofcoronavirus.com was about the New Math and the creative methods used by different countries to count Covid-19 deaths. These methods were the following:
Counting Method 1: Coronavirus deaths are people that die in hospital coronavirus wards and are diagnosed as such.
Counting Method 2: Coronavirus deaths are people that die in hospitals, in elderly care facilities, or at home with symptoms though without official diagnosis.
Counting Method 3: Coronavirus deaths do not exist.
The WHO has now publicly stated that Counting Method 2 is the best one, but countries are reticent about using it because the resulting figures would be too depressing. Moreover, to use this method, one must first know how to count.
Although governments have now had two months to brush up on their counting skills, they do not seem to be doing very well. In fact, the learning curve seems to have gone flat. The only evolution has been towards an even higher level of numerical confusion.
Now in June, the world must reopen since the economy cannot be shut down forever. The problem is that the coronavirus situation has only lightened up a bit because of confinement and social distance. When people start going out again, there will be an increase in cases. The virus is still around and has not disappeared as predicted.
So, world leaders now have the unenviable task of persuading the population that it is fine to return to a new normal life despite the possible risks involved. Selling safety is an even greater challenge in countries, such as Brazil and Russia, which are lifting restrictions without any perceivable justification for doing so.
For example, the Russian government has to reopen the country because of politics, and the process must go as quickly as possible. This week many restrictions were suddenly lifted despite the high infection rate. The government wishes to guarantee a high turnout for a full-scale military parade on 24 June and then for a 1 July referendum that could amend the constitution to allow President Vladimir Putin to remain in power until 2036.
Moscow’s mayor has triumphantly stated that the coronavirus has been defeated. Despite the roughly 8500 new Covid-19 cases per day, very few people ever seem to die of it. According to my Russian daughter-in-law, doctors in Moscow are well aware who butters their bread, and know that coronavirus deaths are frowned upon. It is thus easier (and more politically correct) to turn a blind eye and say that the cause of death was an attack of the vapors. It is a way of not raining on the upcoming parade.
Brazil has also sought creative ways to justify de-escalation. In an effort to improve numbers, last week the government suddenly stopped publishing the daily, weekly and monthly figures on infections and deaths. A few days later, the website returned but the total numbers of infections for Brazilian states and the nation had vanished. The site only showed the numbers for the previous 24 hours. Evidently, the only good statistic is a dead statistic.
On Tuesday, however, the Brazilian government was obliged to restore all of the coronavirus data to its official national website. The Brazilian Supreme Court (where sanity still prevails) ruled that the Health Ministry had to fully re-establish the daily dissemination of epidemiological data on the Covid-19 pandemic.
President Bolsonaro has now decided that if the statistics must be published, he will make them “more accurate”. The person chosen to do this is a businessman named Carlos Wizard. His last name is indicative of how he will perform the task assigned to him.
Despite being in a better situation than Russia and Brazil, Spain also has considerable expertise in creative counting. The Spanish Ministry of Health collects data but delights in changing the data collection method every two weeks or so. The numbers are published, but no one is able to understand or interpret them.
This has made it possible to reduce cases by 20,000 in April by only including those diagnosed with PCR, and then to abruptly reduce deaths by 2000 in May, when the data collection method was again changed ‘to improve its efficiency’.
Now the system is so ‘efficient’ that for the past month, the number of deaths has not varied even though the Minister of Health admits that there are still deaths. Every day Spaniards hold their collective breath and watch in awed wonder as authorities seek to semantically justify the resulting statistical anarchy.
These countries are evidently not the only ones whose counting methods are candidates for the Theater of the Absurd. They merely exemplify a growing tendency to fabricate a more convenient truth when reality is not complicit with one’s desires.
