Vincent J. Curtis\
20 Nov 20
The deceptiveness of small numbers
Today, Premier Ford ordered the locking down of Toronto and Peel Region on the basis of rising case numbers, hospitalizations, and ICU usage. To justify this action, he said that in the last eight days, the number of hospitalizations rose 22 percent, and ICU usage grew by nearly 50 percent. This may seem alarming, and it was intended to, but the deceptiveness of percentages is that when you start with a small base, percentage increase can be deceptive. An increase from 1 to 2 and from 500 to 1,000 are both doublings, but 2 is less impressive than 1,000.
Here are the actual numbers. On November 12, COVID hospitalization in Ontario was 431 and ICU was 98. On November 20, hospitalization was 518 and ICU 142. The percentage increases are as Mr. Ford said, but there are over 460 hospitals in Ontario, and probably a couple thousand ICU beds. In addition, these latter numbers are actually down from a peak of 535 hospitalizations on November 18 and 146 ICU cases on November 19.
Ontario medical officials have had six months to figure out a way of handling localized spikes, and developing surge capacity. They could have prepared to set up temporary care centres just for COVID patients. It appears they haven’t. So instead of the inexpensive way of coping with local spikes in hospitalizations by deploying surge capacity, Ontario goes through the expensive way of locking down business and confining every single person to their homes in Toronto and Peel, with a total population of nearly 4 million.
Premier Ford is not being well advised, and apparently doesn’t think of this stuff himself.
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