While the second wave comes with the explosive rhythm I anticipated (and as the second harmonic is still prevalent there will almost certainly be the third around January), I am starting to notice a similar media tactic from all governments. And I say this because I am the creator of the “mountain of shit theory”: I recognize the phenomenon well.

It is a media technique based on the saturation of data, expressed in a way that citizens cannot understand them. A river of technicalities are poured onto the citizen with which he will become familiar without ever understanding them (such as the concept of “exponential function”, which many humanist intellectuals have tried to explain, confusing it with any exponential growth), and he will pass the time to discussing things he is unable to analyze.

An example is the ingenious idea of ​​spilling the data on measured infections on people. The Western citizen is being drowned with the numbers of the growth of infections, measured with different procedures in different countries and even in different regions of the same nation, and invited to think about them.

Let’s face it, it is a fact that is useful for epidemiologists and mathematicians because they know what to do with it, but for the normal citizen they are practically useless, except to draw misleading conclusions.

So, let’s start from a clear point:

as a citizen, I don’t give a damn about how many are infected.

The reason is very simple:

• my number one problem is whether I will survive.
• My number two problem is whether I’m going to be intubated.
• My number three problem is whether I’m going to be hospitalized.
• My number four problem is whether I have to stay in quarantine so as not to kill others.

Consequently, the total number of infections is irrelevant to me: I am interested in knowing if I am infected to know if I have to stay in quarantine.

But let’s also assume that I am infected and I am in quarantine. If I have no symptoms and I’m fine, I don’t give a damn about what’s going on outside. A clarification: when I say that I do not give a damn I mean that I do not need to understand what is happening in a useful way .

When I mentioned this to a friend she said no, because I need to know if I should worry . In practice, that is, this information only serves to trigger anguish.

While there are other useful information. In itself the number of infected means little. 95% of our body’s DNA is bacteria, and we are colonized by thousands of viruses. Knowing I have one more doesn’t tell me anything if I can’t estimate the risk I’m actually taking . But to actually estimate the risk, the number of infected is of little use. I need more.

• I need the number of deaths per million. This helps me enormously to understand what risk I am running, because it is the closest number to a flat rate calculation of probabilities. It is weak because the epidemic is growing exponentially and therefore it is not easily interpolated, but it is very close to the risk I escaped today , in case I am well.
• the number of hospitalized, the number of beds still available. Let’s face it: when the number of beds available is zero, lock yourself in the house and do not go out for any reason .. Not even to work, and if your boss has problems do not answer the phone.
• how many among the hospitalized are light, how many serious, how many very serious.
• the distribution of deaths by age, gender and other medical conditions. This allows you to calculate the danger you are in.

I repeat: when the number of beds available is zero, close yourself in the house and do not go out for any reason. Whatever the government says or not, whatever your company thinks. YOU MAKE THE DECISION. Not Confindustria.

The reason is obvious: when the number of places in the hospital is zero, the probability of dying is no longer that of those who are treated (from 2.2% to 4.5% depending on the country), but the “raw” one linked to mortality among untreated people, which varies according to age, sex and physical condition. And it’s bigger than an order of magnitude, or more.

What I mean is that as a person, in order to know if I have to lock myself in the house alone (I don’t need the government’s decision) this data is enough. Once there are no more hospital beds available, the risk of leaving the house is simply too high.

The problem is, in fact, that if these data were provided to me (and if they were provided in real time, area of ​​the country by area of ​​the country) I would not need the government to know if I have to stay indoors. It is absolutely clear that if the hospital beds are finished, you must avoid the contagion point, at any cost, with no ifs and buts , because you are in danger of life. You do not need De Luca, Conte, Merkel or anyone: given the data on free places in the hospital, the decision is OBVIOUS: we lock ourselves up at home and see you in spring. It’s a simple decision, and if Confindustria doesn’t like it, who cares.

Same with the number of deaths per million in your area. This is not a given “input” such as the number of infected: the infected, in fact, is only at the beginning of the process. Some will get sick, some will not. Some will be sick, others will be serious, others very serious, others will die. And the number of victims is the “output” data.

None of us can predict the number of deaths from the number of infected. But the number of deaths is known.

And here came the communicators. The problem of the government, of all governments, is that if citizens were given the real data on the number of free beds on the total, and on the number of deaths per million in the area, the citizen would decide for himself what to do .

It is clear that if a person knows he is overweight and knows his age, as soon as he sees that the number of beds is close to zero and the probability of dying is high, he WILL DECIDE ON HISelf to stay at home. . work or not.

But the government wants to manage the closures. He wants to be the one to decide who closes and when. If he wants to keep businesses open but close schools, HIM wants to decide, not parents or employees.

So what does it do?

It floods you with useless data. Send conflicting experts on TV. It floods you with numbers you don’t know how to use, like the R with zero, the R with t, and all the other technicalities with which you don’t know how to estimate the risk you run.

The two data that you would need to calculate the risk, however, never arrive, and if they do, they are always spread out in a way that does not help you. What you would like to know is:

• what risk I run at my age and in my significant physical condition.
• how many are now dead per million in my area and how they are growing.
• what are the percentages of light, serious, very serious, deaths hospitalized.
• how many free beds are there, and how they are decreasing.

with these three pieces of information I would NOT need the government. I could decide what to do and when to stay at home. I wouldn’t need the government to tell me.

And if I did decide, the government couldn’t tell me that I have to go to work while the schools have to close. I would be the one to decide for myself and my family. And even if in my decision to lock myself in the house, I lose my job, I would be the one to evaluate the pros and cons. And with the numbers I mentioned, making a RATIONAL decision is absolutely simple. (not my case because at home we can all do home-office, but you understand what I mean).

On the contrary, the numbers that are pouring on you are the ones USELESS to make a decision. What I see are:

• numbers in all countries of the world. How does knowing what’s going on in brazil help me make a decision about my health?
• the number of infected and the raw number of deaths counted over the whole country, which tells me little about the risk I run in the place where I am.
• the number of deaths by age, on a global or national scale, sometimes those by sex, almost never those due to previous illnesses and physical conditions.

Sure, an expert with a little knowledge can take these numbers and try to make estimates, but the fact remains that making a life / death decision in this way is absurd.

Consequently, I hang from the lips of the government. I don’t know what risk a 50 year old male tall 1.83, with a BMI of 20.1 and no previous disease runs, I don’t know what the number of deaths per million is in my area (I could calculate it, sure, and I did. But for those who don’t know how to use some tools to download raw data from robert koch it becomes complicated), I don’t know how many free places there are out of the total in the hospitals in my area and I don’t know at what rate they download: if the free places are few but the hospital stay is short, it means waiting time however short because many enter but many leave. What is the waiting time today? How do the queues work right now? What is the minor / serious / very serious situation?

But no: we are here to discuss an input indicator, the number of infected.

For this reason, I am completely disinterested in it. I don’t give a damn about the number of infected because:

• it is a fact that can be easily manipulated by the government by changing the quantity of tampons made and the sample of people they are used for.
• I don’t know how to calculate or extrapolate the number of deaths and the risk of dying from the data on the infected.

In short, the government through the press is throwing up the most useless data on people, keeping people glued to the numbers that DO NOT ALLOW YOU TO TAKE A RATIONAL DECISION. And if I can’t take it, I can only let the government / Confindustria / Whatever take it for me.

And this allows governments to impose irrational decisions, under the pressure of the various confindustries, the various churches and all the other entities that, for political reasons, decide to have their say.

When I say “irrational”, I mean that everyone inside a school can be 2 meters away (here in Germany, I don’t know the details from you) as long as you keep the windows open (mandatory) and that everyone has a mask, while at companies have NOT imposed the windows open and the masks are removed when you are in your place. Why changing the air is effective in a school but not in an office is an example of an irrational decision. As now they ask me to keep the windows open half an hour a day (at least, but more times is even better) when I’m at home, but public transport has the windows CLOSED. What chemical / physical sense does it have? It’s a stupid diffusion mechanism in a fluid, supercazzle or not.

It is certain that I would not do any of these nonsense (and I would behave in a rational way, that is to enter only buildings with open windows) if there was transparency in general. If there was transparency in general, I would enter the “I have to evaluate what to do in MY case” mode. And so I would start making decisions.

And let’s be clear, it is not said that my decisions would be less harsh than those of the government: I told my father and my mother (both elderly with regressed diseases) to shut up at home WELL BEFORE the government or the region made a decision .

But when I only know useless data, then I exit the “I have to make decisions” mode and enter that “let’s see what the government decides”.

And I suspect that is exactly what was wanted. Because if at some point people decide the lockdown on their own, Confindustria is not happy. If I decide on my own that from tomorrow entering a restaurant is risky (I celebrated my birthday at home for this, even if in theory the restaurants are still open today), maybe confesercenti gets annoyed. If my boss decides for himself (but we chew the data well) that everyone in the company stays at home, the restaurateurs nearby are not happy.

But if no one makes decisions on their own, well: the partial curfew begins on November 2nd. Today October 31st the restaurants are ok. And going to work on public transport is still ok.

It is a well-known political communication strategy. Rivers of useless data on citizens are thrown up. Citizens cannot make rational decisions on their own, and they rely on the government.

And the best way to tame a wild horse is to blindfold it. Blind horses never fidget.

How to do? Just ignore the following data:

• number of infected. Are you able to calculate your risk based on this? No. So ignore it, it doesn’t help.
• R with zero and R with t. Are you able to solve the differential equations of the SEIRS, SIR, and other model? No. Ignore them as well.
• The number of deaths nationwide with no standard deviation calculated by area. Without standard deviation or distribution, the number does not help you make decisions and you are in the hands of the mayor or the region.
• The number of infected, hospitalized or dead from other countries. You are unable to calculate your risk based on this.

These data (truthful but incomprehensible to you) are there to confuse you, because when you are confused you will leave it to others to make the decisions.