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Do we the same number of car accidents as last year as “zero?” Same number of murders?!
I can think of no earthly scientific reason for this. This is data propaganda. Change my mind.
UPDATE: Unsurprisingly, some parts of the quoted post’s quoted post are wrong. See thread below.
From @violetblue: https://mastodon.social/@violetblue/113852273879261711
@violetblue
OK, so…no, they’re not using last year’s total or average as a baseline; they’re taking the 10th percentile of a 6-month period. That’s a perfectly reasonable metric for “about as low as it’s been recently.”
That part of the quoted post was wrong.
Details here: https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/about-data.html
The part that wasn’t completely wrong…
…is that they •are• reporting COVID activity levels relative to that baseline.
What that means is if COVID levels are about as low as they’ve been recently, the CDC will use the official word “minimal” for that.
Whether “minimal” gets treated as “zero” in the public mind…well, that depends on the press and the Trump administration doing a good job. 
In short:
What CDC is doing is •not• like saying “we are going to call the same number of murders as last year •zero•.”
What the CDC is doing is saying “we are going to call the lowest the murder rate has recently been •minimal•.”
That’s…not awesome, but not as egregious as the OP made it out to be.
Thinking about my own hotheaded reaction to the OP, and the dread I feel about the likely social impact of the CDC’s not unreasonable but kind of weak sauce policy, my thoughts keep coming back to how hard it is to live in a low-trust environment.
If I trusted the CDC to communicate well and be forceful in pursuit of public health…
If I trusted the press to communicate this to the public well…
If I trusted the incoming administration not to twist every weakly stated truth into an outright lie…
…but yeah, I don't. None of the above.
I will give a shout-out to the hero of this conversation, though: this community.
Someone in the replies respectfully pointed out that I was spreading bad info.
Mastodon post editing let me notify everyone who reposted or favorited the OP that there was a correction.
And shout out to the OP for raising this issue to my attention in the first place. That’s important too. We can’t get everything perfect on the first try in our social media posts, but that shouldn't stop us from communicating! I wouldn’t have learned any of this if it weren’t for them.
@inthehands @violetblue Agreed. Normalizing the data to zero means they are saying this level is “normal”, and expected now. Evil.
@inthehands @violetblue Oof. I had concerns when the UK changed its baseline for determining excess deaths, but there at least I can see the rationale: it ordinarily would have been updated on a rolling basis all along. This just sounds absurd.
@inthehands If COVID is over why am I always within earshot of somebody coughing.
In all seriousness, it's necessary for COVID to be "over" so managers can go back to valorizing coming to work sick.
@inthehands @violetblue This? Is bullshit.
This is lies in service of the so-called "leaders" who utterly failed us and who continue to fail us.
"Do we [count] the same number of car accidents as last year as “zero?”
Shhhh. Please don't give the auto industry any ideas.
@inthehands @violetblue That’s not what the CDC says. That’s what someone who didn’t read assumed.
Go see for yourself on the CDC page: see “About the Data” and “Data Methods.” The baseline is the 10th percentile of previous timeframes. Which seems reasonable to me.
Not everything you read online is true.
@jamiemccarthy @inthehands @violetblue Yeah, I'm reading through this and just don't see anything like what's claimed in the original post. This description is pretty clear, and it is definitely not “last year's average is this year's zero.”
@waldoj Yeah, see updates in thread following the OP.
@jamiemccarthy
Thanks for the heads up. I dug up the text myself (link for anybody reading so they don't have to dig too: https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/about-data.html#), and the OP definitely gets it wrong.
I added an explanatory thread after the OP.
@jamiemccarthy @inthehands @violetblue Thanks for checking up on this. That makes a lot more sense.
It's just proof that Dems are just as mendacious as Republicans, but better at lying.
It's even simpler than propaganda...
It's the CDC preemptively attempting to capitulate to the Chump Melon Felon in hopes of staving off being gutted by the new anti-science anti-health regime.
This too will fail.
@inthehands @violetblue we're in full agreement
though "propaganda" is one of those words that signifies more of an emotionally-determined thing to a lot of people rather than something specific, so we'd probably describe it in terms of intent to mislead for political purposes, or whatever
but that's just, like... word choice
@inthehands @violetblue ... counterpoint to be aware of https://federate.social/@jik/113852808291673673
@ireneista Yes, please see additional posts threaded from the OP
@inthehands thanks for digging in and clarifying
@inthehands IME you don't get a notification for an edit to a post you favourited. only boosted posts get that
@obfusk
Good to know, thanks
@inthehands yeah :/ the practice of public health requires trust, which is why it's been particularly upsetting to realize that it has always been a deeply political exercise far more than a fact-centric one, and that this is just the first time in living memory that's mattered in a big way
@ireneista
Yes, public health and politics are always deeply intertwined. •All• health and politics. Science and politics.
And that’s not to say that these things can’t be fact-centric; they can, and I’ve seen all of them be that in their best moments. But we have to recognize that creating a space in which they can be fact-centric is itself a political project — and a never-ending one, like pulling the weeds.
@inthehands@hachyderm.io It's so dumb. The delta is not the value, morons.
They're not actually morons, so I'm not entirely sure what the end game is here. What's the point of doing this, to placate the masses?
@inthehands @violetblue It's a 12 month period recalculated every six months, not a six month period.
Comparing current levels of a disease to the annual minimum is a long-standing, widely used and accepted method for representing levels of diseases.
The "minimal" thing isn't a change, it's how they've already been doing things.
They are just changing how they are baselining because different sites measure and calculate wastewater levels differently, and they need to normalize that.
@inthehands @violetblue Moving the goalposts like this strikes me as deeply dishonest. We could have had one good downstream effect from covid:
-- Becoming aware of how large a health burden airborne respiratory viruses are.
-- Using indoor UVC air purification and good ventilation (and masking when needed).
Instead of that we're going for a new "normal" of disease burden because it's cheaper.
Leaving the sewers uncovered would have also been cheaper. In the very short run. Like this.
@inthehands @violetblue Enlightening thread, thank you