Shocking Data Analytics Of Coronavirus & How To Regain Sanity!
The Coronavirus headlines are getting EXPONENTIALLY more alarming by the day. The headlines of the largest posts and news outlets are all bringing the same PANDEMIC warnings — from all around the world.
China is not alone anymore in reporting an apocalyptic spread of Coronavirus. It’s South Korea, Japan, Iran, Italy — you name it. And country after country report of voluntary cancellations of many events — embracing unprecedented crowd controls and even curfews of entire cities.
So, it’s no surprise, that global stock market indices begin to sink like a stone, too — sparking a global fear of economic recessions. As of Monday, Feb 24, 2020 — CNN reports that: “there were at least 77,150 confirmed cases in mainland China, bringing the global total to 79,356, with the death toll at 2,619”.
Now, a few years ago, I posted a LinkedIn article: The Opposite — When In Doubt, Ask This Question! My message was as follows: “I have learned over the years to question various assumptions leading to the foregone conclusions. More often than not, the cracks can be spotted by asking for the opposite. For example, if the conditions highlighting why a certain logic works are clearly spelled out — the simplest way to add clarity is to ask: under what conditions the stated logic wouldn’t work?”.
So, in light of the Coronavirus PANDEMIC and the alarming statistics from China, I decided to dust-off my previous post and I asked myself the following question: How many people contract pneumonia in China and die from it every year — WITHOUT the Coronavirus?
Truth be told, I didn’t have to look around for too long and found the answer to my question at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2909231/ . This article was published by the US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health and is entitled: “Pneumonia Incidence and Mortality in Mainland China: Systematic Review of Chinese and English Literature, 1985–2008”
What followed, was a true eye-opener! It said:
· “Pneumonia is one of the leading causes of death in adults and children in China. In urban areas, pneumonia is the fourth leading cause of death, and in rural areas, pneumonia is the leading cause of death.
· A recent article in the Chinese literature estimated that each year in China there are 2.5 million patients with pneumonia and that 125,000 (5%) of these patients die of pneumonia-related illness.
· A 2008 global review estimated that there were 21.1 million new cases of clinical pneumonia annually in China in children under 5 years of age (0.22 episodes/person-year), which is second only to India in burden (43.0 million new cases, 0.37 episodes/person-year).
· Available estimates of the burden of childhood pneumonia in China vary widely, and pneumonia accounts for an estimated 17% of all child deaths in China and 67% of all childhood pneumonia deaths in the Western Pacific region”.
Now, remember, all this happens in China EVERY year — and without any link to the presently discovered Coronavirus! So, let’s look at the data without the bias — because the numbers don’t lie!
Data analytics teaches us that EVERYTHING is RELATIVE. You can’t just look at the ABSOLUTE numbers without taking the context into account. So, a few days ago, I decided to add such context in tabulating the Coronavirus reports from China.
Based on the average cases of pneumonia in China over the last 10 years, the mortality rate due to the Coronavirus is only at 1.8%. If that’s the case — there is no justification for spreading the EVERGROWING fear…
It’s well known that the majority of deaths are attributed to small children and/or elderly — due to their yet underdeveloped or weakened immune systems. And it happens WITH or WITHOUT the Coronovirus — every year.
Now, the reported 2200+ deaths in China look like a big number — but not when you take into account China’s entire population of 1.4B people! And in light of the above, today’s CNN report of global death cases reaching 2,619 — relates to… 7.8B people! It’s merely 0.000034%
But don’t just take my calculations at face value. An interesting finding was recently reported by Financial Times: “For comparison, seasonal flu has a mortality rate below 0.1 percent but it infects so many people that around 400,000 deaths a year worldwide are attributable to flu. And Spanish flu in 1918–19 infected 500m and killed 50m worldwide”
And World Economic Forum compares Coronavirus to SARS and MERS epidemics as follows: “The latest statistics indicate a fatality rate of about 2.2%. The SARS virus killed about 10% of all infected individuals, while the MERS outbreak identified in 2012 had a fatality rate of around 35%”. Below is a graphical illustration of the above:
In my recent book: AI BOOGEYMAN — Dispelling Fake News About Job Losses I spoke about how dispelling fake-news about job losses related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) — became my mission! And I emphasized that despite the hype, job-losses attributed to AI are mostly fiction and scare tactics of unscrupulous “experts”.
Not since Y2K scare, the predictions of AI-linked job losses have turned the prophecies of Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt (FUD) into such a massive cottage industry.
And how about stock markets? Well, it seems to me that the only beneficiaries of spreading the Coronavirus fear are stock market manipulators — who thrive when the Volatility Indices go up!
But perhaps stock market manipulators are not the only ones… Big Pharma’s Test Kits detecting the Coronavirus must be doing pretty well, too. And if the Coronavirus vaccine is soon “miraculously” discovered by one, or two Pharmaceuticals — well, all bets are off!
The Coronavirus sensationalism and the predictions of doom & gloom remind me of the Y2K fears of 20 years ago. IMHO, the data DOESN’T SUPPORT such FUDs but there are plenty of CONSULTANTS ready to make a lot of money and write a lot of books on above. And the Y2K scare… remember how that turned out?
As long as the death/infection ratio stays the same — focus on improving the treatment outcomes will be more beneficial than panicking about the Coronavirus infection rates. Especially, when such activities are targeted toward the children and the elderly.
Perhaps disinfecting sidewalks 3 times a day makes for a good PR exercise but how is it going to help to treat the little children and the elderly is not clear to me… Severe economic consequences are not far behind and hundreds of millions of people around the world may lose their jobs and their life-savings — if unabated & overblown Coronavirus panic prevails.
Oleg Feldgajer is President & CEO of Canada Green ESCO Inc. Oleg is positioning the company to become a leader in financing AI-enhanced green energy projects and ventures. CGE’s mission is to guide DISRUPTIVE businesses in ENERGY & TRANSPORTATION toward profitable business models. Oleg is passionate about such a mission and firmly believes that without AI-based innovation, we will all prematurely choke on polluted air and dirty water. CGE delivers 100% financing (levered and unlevered) to its clients — and utilizes large equity pools, and non-recourse debt. Oleg offers creative, fresh ideas to open-minded businesses — that embrace both: logic AND opportunistic intuition. CGE stands against mediocrity & its modus operandi is quite simple: If CGE is not invited to join your BOD or Advisory Board — we failed!
