What stats tell us - and don’t tell us - about COVID-19 in NC.

The nation’s pandemic problem is also becoming a math problem.

As scientists and doctors urge caution and business interests push for a wider reopening, coronavirus statistics are being distorted through ideological lenses. That is a discouraging and divisive turn that undermines the public’s clear understanding of the coronavirus threat.

Democratic and Republican leaders should be urging people to rely on the judgment of experts about what the numbers say. Instead random people are taking to paid advertisements, letters to the editor and social media to present their own calculations about death rates, risks by age and geographic patterns of infection.

The debate about when and how to reopen the economy has turned partisans into amateur statisticians. In North Carolina, they pore over numbers posted on a COVID-19 dashboard on the website of the Department of Health and Human Services. Some see the numbers as dire, others see them as reassuring.

The boldest assertions come from reopen advocates. Some, for instance, claim the numbers show that the chance of dying from COVID-19 in North Carolina is less than one half of 1 percent. But, looked at another way, among the confirmed cases of infection, about 3.5 percent have died. (Many more have been hospitalized.)

A full-page News & Observer ad purchased by an individual this week said the state’s numbers show that there is no grave danger in letting mayors and county officials decide what local businesses can be open.

DHHS Secretary Mandy Cohen has added more granular statistics to her department’s website, but she told the Editorial Board this week that the numbers still get misinterpreted or considered only in isolation. For example, she said, the death rate is not the only measure that matters. The rate of hospitalizations also shows the seriousness of the threat and indicates whether the state’s health systems have the capacity to handle it.

Cohen also stressed that the statistics measure an evolving situation, not a settled one. It won’t be until the pandemic is over, she said, “that we can get some of the statistics people want in the moment.”

Despite all the numbers being tossed about, some important ones are still unknown. How many people have died of COVID-19 who weren’t tested for it? How many people are infected? How many have recovered?

Leonard Stefanski, head of N.C. State University’s Department of Statistics, said that interpreting the DHHS numbers has another often overlooked caveat – real vs. potential.

“The North Carolina statistics reflect what actually happened; they do not reflect what would have happened in the absence of public health orders by the governor,” he said. “What would the statistics be today if there had been no interventions?”

Even with total cases unknown, he said, it’s clear that the COVID-19 fatality rate skews heavily toward people over 65. “The risk to older people is about 40 times the risk to younger people,” he said, but he added that the rate needs context: “For sure, the young are not as likely to die, but here’s where an infectious disease expert is needed to comment on how likely they are to transmit the disease to others, who are more likely to die from the disease.”

In the end, our response to the pandemic shouldn’t be about statistics alone. It should be about people first, especially how we protect those who are most at risk because of their age or an underlying health condition.

So far, concern for the vulnerable has guided the state’s response. That shouldn’t change as North Carolina warily enters a second phase of reopening.

This story was originally published May 22, 2020 at 12:00 AM with the headline "What stats tell us - and don’t tell us - about COVID-19 in NC.."