Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

It's the one metric that should be almost entirely free from argument. We can argue about cases. We can argue about attribution of deaths. But we know how many people are dead. That's simple counting.

Yearly deaths are relatively stable and predictable. This year we have a lot more of them than usual, even in excess of those we've attributed to COVID.

I agree, it's sad. And it's going to take months at least for us to delve into the data fully and explain it all. But number of dead [from any cause] at this time in 2020 compared to number of dead at this time in 2019 or 2018 shouldn't be a number you have trouble believing.

In general I agree, but there's also a lot more confusion and panic right now, in all things related to deaths, categorizing deaths, attributing deaths, than there was in 2019 or 2018. There are also more people looking, more people reporting, more agencies inquiring, more politicians attempting to influence the reporting.  There could be double-counting by various agencies, there could also be lost data from various sources.  Suffice to say the processes and reporting around counting deaths in our country right now in 2020, is incredibly chaotic, compared to other years.

Ultimately the "count" will be static and immutable.  But in the current climate-- with panic and pressure at an all-time high resulting from the 24/7 new cycle and our population's need for instant gratification-- I don't think it's a stretch at all to think that the numbers we're seeing could be wrong, and indeed they could be VERY wrong.  Whether it's too high or too low, or the problems might cancel out, remains to be seen.  But I don't think we're going to know much at all, for months or even years, to be honest.

I don't trust anyone or any source any longer

well, I still trust Tom Osborne

what info do you trust - what "expert" do you trust?

and why should I trust them?

I'd love to have a reliable source that was trustworthy, really

what info do you trust - what "expert" do you trust?

and why should I trust them?

I'd love to have a reliable source that was trustworthy, really

There's no single source of truth on this thing... 

Generally, I trust the experts in the field as long as they're speaking about things within their wheelhouse. For example, I trust Fauci as an expert on infectious diseases; he's not an economic expert. I trust the people trying to obtain and compile the numbers on this thing--I don't think the folks at Johns Hopkins are biased either way. I think they're trying to get it right. I think that for the most part, the people trying to create models are doing their best to be right. There are competing models, and being consistently wrong while others are consistently closer to the target doesn't help your reputation in the field. 

Effectively, if you look at numbers/predictions, and if you looked at the health discussions, back in March they were all over the map because we didn't know very much. As we've learned more and more, I think the error bars have tightened and our information has gotten "better" from the "experts". Is it 100% there? Of course not. But I firmly believe it's a heck of a lot closer to the truth than whatever our guts tell us. 

The problem with the numbers is the ways the different states report them. Look at the gaffe in Florida, for example, or look at Wisconsin, which keeps data marked as preliminary for two weeks before finalizing.

None of this is in real time. The Dock Doc told me last night that he is now waiting up to 14 days for test results from Quest. What good is the result if it's 14 days later?

That's true. We just had a major issue here in California where we had something like a 295,000 test backlog. Our Public Health Director just resigned over it:

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/10/901064484/california-coronavirus-testing-problem-prompts-resignation-of-public-health-offi

This is obviously a problem because if you're trying to base reopening/lockdown decisions on case rates and positive test rates, and you're not getting timely information, you're making decisions on incomplete data. 

But look at what has happened?

In Florida, the state garnered major negative media attention because their health director resigned claiming she was being asked to falsify data. In California, the health director wasn't trying to falsify data; she just was the "buck stops here" person who had to resign when it was publicized that the data had issues. People are trying to fix these problems and get to better numbers. 

But that's a reason to take certain numbers with a grain of salt and assume that the 95% confidence interval of reality is wider than the current "official" number, not to act like every number we see is bullshit. 

Experts are doing their level best to figure this stuff out. Their error bars are a lot tighter than us laymen and our gut feelings about this stuff.

so, Fauci and Johns Hopkins

I'm leery as hell of Fauci, mostly because he states things he certainly isn't sure about.  Probably because he''s getting bad information and stats.

So, in other words, Fauci doesn't know who to trust but doesn't have the time to check everything and has to say something

I can't help but read that as "duck doc" every time