Finally, the fear mongers have an Omicron variation COVID death. Or do they?
United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson broke the news without details Monday. But if you read what Johnson said it was that a patient had died “with Omicron.”
Many news outlets ranging from the BBC to CNBC reported the situation using Johnson’s “with.”
CNN, not surprisingly, headlined the death was “from Omicron” on its website.
The difference could be considerable. I think back to the early days of COVID hysteria in 2020, when overzealous types in Florida listed a man killed in a motorcycle accident as a COVID death because apparently the corpse tested positive for the virus.
When called on it, one doctor observed that COVID might have contributed to the crash. So could have speeding, inattention, lack of skill, or any number of other hypotheticals.
If only the Florida propagandists had used “died with” they’d have been correct technically, albeit in a misleading way.
Trying to blame COVID was a pretty weak reach on the part of the medicine man and I suspect the death certificate didn’t list COVID as the cause of death.
But it helped the scare narrative to juice the COVID death count.
And that brings us to the person in England. Did the patient die from Omicron (including any direct complications), or merely with it?
Johnson, a man given to verbal hyperbole, also said his nation faces a “tidal wave” of Omicron infections. In view of that, perhaps he used “with” intentionally to provide some verbal wiggle room should this turn out to be another motorcycle accident.
The same story reported England had 48,854 news cases of COVID (not specified by strain) on Sunday. That was broken down to 501 out of every 100,000 people in the population now are infected.
The reported number of Omicron infections, as of Sunday, was listed as 3,137. On Monday the health secretary reported 10 people infected with Omicron were in the hospital.
There’s that word “with” again.
It’s possible they all are hospitalized due to the virus. It’s also possible some are there for hernia surgery and happened to test positive for Omicron.
Either way, any student of statistics would tell you that one death from a group of 3,317 people, or even 10 hospitalizations from that number, is statistically insignificant, either calculation coming in at tiny fractions of one percent.
Eventually we will find out if Omicron, which has been characterized by many medical professionals as both very communicable and typically relatively harmless, will turn into a dreaded killer.
For now, hold the panic. And watch what prepositions are used in the reporting.
Sam Ross Jr's site 