COVID-19: May 2020 Archives

There ought to be a law that all social media posts about CCP Bat Virus must begin with the word "Aha!" Quite a few posts on the topic are there not so much as information, but as vindication for whatever theory or policy prescription the poster wishes to offer.

I've heard this stat in the title quoted many different ways, by people who want to prove that lockdowns are useless, and by people who want to prove that the CCP Bat Virus is so fierce that lockdowns aren't tough enough.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, when presenting the chart, "This is a surprise. Overwhelmingly the people were at home.... 66% of the people were at home, which was shocking to us."

The CNBC story that quoted Cuomo was headlined: "Cuomo says it's 'shocking' most new coronavirus hospitalizations are people who had been staying home"

"66% of hospitalizations in New York are from people sheltering in place," claims Tom Nikkola, who argues that stay-at-home orders and mask recommendations are for the purpose of behaviorally priming the populace for some nefarious reason.

Here's a sampling from a Twitter search -- the most recent relevant results at time of writing:

• @Daniel48240947: "Lockdown increased COVID in NY. 66 percent of new cases were caused by the lockdown."
• @jeffreywood709: "Cuomo himself stated that more than 66 percent of people in NY who contracted COVID where sheltered in their homes"
• @BryanGarner18: "#coronaviruses, I find it revealing that New York found that 66 percent of Covid Patients had been closed up inside. Is this a Legionaires air system phenomena. ? States allowing beach access are better off. NY needs UV light."
• @D4M4C4, replying to @NYGovCuomo: "If 66 percent of the people were home and still caught the covid virus...I would question your water quality. Your sewer quality too. New York needs infrastructure projects badly!"
• @DrjimPhifer: "Very important to note: 66 percent of new COVID-19 hospital admissions in NY were people who were self-isolating. These two individuals only left home to get groceries. Please use extreme caution!"

Let's look at the chart that was presented by Gov. Cuomo at a May 6, 2020, news conference.

Note the title and the choices on this slide:

SOURCES OF ADMISSION

Other 8%
Nursing Home 18%
Jail/Prison <1%
Homeless 2%
Home 66%
Congregate 2%
Assisted Living 4%

This is a list of the types of places people live, not how busy they were, not whether they sheltered in place or went on public transport or went to the supermarket.

A better way to read this: 66% of the people admitted to hospital for CCP Bat Virus were not homeless, in jail, living in a nursing home, assisted living, or living in any other sort of group housing.

Yet a simpler way to read this: 66% of the people admitted to hospital for CCP Bat Virus live in their own houses, apartments, or condos.

The chart does not convey any information about how much of the time admitted COVID-19 hospital patients had been spending at home or away from home, whether they wore masks or not, whether they maintained social distance or not. Just where they resided.

Bill Hammond, director of health policy for the Empire Center, a free-market think tank serving New York State, was the first one I noticed pointing this out on Twitter.

This question seems to be about where people live, not what they do. On that basis, people living at home are significantly *underrepresented,* as you would expect.

Hammond goes on to point out:

The stat that jumps out at me is nursing homes. They house about 100,000 NYers, which is roughly 0.5% of the population, yet they account for 18% of hospitalizations.

It's not necessarily shocking, but it confirms that NH residents are at dramatically higher risk.

New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz commented:

After reading your thread I now think the highlight on the 66% number was to cover up the 18% nursery [sic] home number.

After listening to Cuomo's remarks a few more times, I'm inclined to agree. As he presents the slide, he says:

This is a surprise. Overwhelmingly the people were at home. Where there's been a lot of speculation about this, a lot of people again had opinions, a lot of people have been arguing where they come from, and where we should be focusing, but if you notice, 18% of the people came from nursing homes, less than 1% came from jail or prison, 2% came from the homeless population, 2% from other congregate facilities, but 66% of the people were at home, which is shocking to us.

The italics indicate Cuomo raising his vocal pitch in emphasis. Rhetorically, he's trying to sweep under the rug the truly shocking number -- 0.5% of the population are the source of 18% of hospital admissions for CCP Bat Virus. The beginning of his remarks suggest that he's about to reveal a number which will undermine the public chatter about the shameful number of people in care homes who have become victims of this disease.

I had thought that many more people would notice what Hammond had noticed, and that the "66% were at home" misreading would quickly be corrected. But here we are eight days later, and I'm still seeing and hearing claims like 66% of hospitalizations were of people who were welded into their apartments and washed their hands a hundred times a day.

As far as I have been able to find, the data set for this survey has not been released. It is not on the State of New York's health data website. The only information we have about it is the slide deck Andrew Cuomo presented on May 6, which in turn was the source for all the news stories written about it. We don't know who conducted the survey, how the questions were presented, or what definitions were provided for the responses to each question. And yet hot take after hot take has been built atop a misreading of the data, or worse, a misreading of someone else's misreading of someone else's misreading.

Moral of the story: Before you quote a statistic, take the time to find out exactly where the number came from and as many specifics as you can about the basis for the number.

MORE: Interestingly, the New York Times ignored the housing chart altogether in their coverage of the survey and Cuomo's news conference. Was it because they didn't want to highlight the horrific nursing home number, because they were confused about the significance of the chart, or because they didn't want to expose Cuomo's mishandling of the chart?