The media is already anticipating the 500,000th infection that is coming. That number is of a completely different order than what we can see at the RIVM.
You may be wondering where that number of 500,000 comes from. AD and NOS are not the only ones, as evidenced by the search for "500,000 infections".
You would almost think that the WHO's communication manual says something about the number 500,000.
Let's give it a try Fact-checking according to the best Dutch science journalism traditions: we compare the reporting with the figures on the RIVM website. After all, this is how every nationally publishing journalist tackles his or her truth-finding. They call it 'source research'.
On September 22, we were at 100,000 active infections.
A month ago there were 155,000.
As a final estimate (it is now November 22), RIVM gives approximately 117,905 infections.
On average, certainly not contagious for more than 10 days
Let's calculate with an average of 125,000 for the last 8 weeks. How long does it take for this pool of people to be renewed? When asked how long an infected person remains contagious, the RIVM answers: "that varies from person to person".
After infection, you may not be contagious at all, or for a few days. If you are still not sick after 14 days, you are no longer contagious. If you are unlucky and you are one of the few who do get sick, you will remain contagious longer, at least as long as the infection is active and maybe even after that.
The vast majority of people do not develop any symptoms of disease and are therefore not contagious or are contagious for a maximum of a few days. Let's say the contagious term is 10 days on average. That is very broadly speaking.
Half a million reached after just six weeks
The 125,000 contagious people therefore account for 10 days of active infection. After four periods of ten days, you are at 4 x 125,000 = 500,000. So it takes 40 days to reach 500,000 infections. That's roughly six weeks.
Including March/April, we have now been above 100,000 infections for at least 12 weeks. We have just seen that you get to 500,000 infections in 6 weeks. So in the 12 weeks around the peaks you are at 1 million – and that is very economically calculated.
From February: easily over a million
In the other 20 weeks since February, the infection average has been rounded off to 10,000. That represents 140,000 people. (20 weeks = 140 days. Divided by the period of 10 days = 14 and that times the average of 10,000.). Added to the previous million: 1,140,000.
You only get to 500,000 infections if everyone who has been infected has actually been tested and that every person who tested positive has also become contagious. In that case, you would only have to count the -already debatable- positive tests.
Who can count like that...?
But how did all those journalists calculate it? Or did they just copy/paste the official press releases uncritically? It looks like it when you look at the search results. Some dare to give it their own twist by, for example, replacing "actual" with "actual". Isn't it nice, those differentiated nuances in our flowery media landscape...
Chapeau Hart van Nederland for boldly sticking to its own signature!
Positive tests = infections...?
Behind every positive test there are perhaps dozens of infected people who have not been tested. At the same time, most people who tested positive do not get sick. You can't really do anything with those tests, but in the media and in the House of Representatives, positive tests are simply treated as "infections" and even as "corona cases". Of course none of that is true, but that's just the way it is Democratically decided. So we are talking about politically correct calculations.
Adapt statistics to political desirability. It is hard to imagine a greater poison for society. We are inundated with it.
