In case people don’t understand data of the kinds our virulence statistics comprise — by the time you gather it? It changed. Wildly. This doesn’t mean you discard it. It just means you realize it isn’t anywhere near accurate.

Data is a »post-hoc construct that is never anywhere close to the actual numbers in the situation like this. There are a vast array of reasons for this ranging from the difficulty of counting every incidence to the intentional modulation of numbers for purposes of controlling the perspective of those receiving it.

Data about death or environmental damage are vastly more subject to this feature … not all deaths (or infections, etc.) are known or can be counted, and some will be hidden or simply manipulated for the purposes of those collecting or disseminating them.

The data we are getting is vastly different from what is actually going on in the obvious direction: way too low. You don’t waste time or resources testing dead people. And ‘testing’ isn’t entirely accurate (or even plausible) for the moment and probably for the foreseeable future.