‽istis re-reclaims pandemic ‘vital statistics’ (weekending June 27th 2020)
This week ‽istis, a keen listener to BBC Radio 4’s ‘More or Less’[i] programme and indebted to Tim Harford and the team for quantifying and qualifying such topics (recently) as: school inequality, quarantine, tracing, antibody testing, distancing, face mask wearing, harvests and savvy parrots – helping us tell our Rs from our elbow-bump greetings… wonders about the statistics that might help tell the stories (where ‘n’ is greater than 1 – though whether it is indeed a positive integer may be debated) of the pandemic. Perhaps data such as:
·
jigsaws
started, jigsaws finished
·
number of
facemasks used by any one intensive care nurse in any given week
·
the increase
in soap bar sales
·
the percentage
of relationships where coercive control turned into physical or sexual assault
·
‘bolt-on’ data
purchases
·
numbers of teeth
un-filled or lost
·
the comparative
oxygen use by volume in hospitals
·
the ‘excess’
miles notched up by supermarket online shopping delivery vans
·
the therapy
sessions missed
·
the increase
in number of jogging bottoms/pants bought
·
the number of new
social media music groups set up
·
the additional
deaths from suicide
·
the increase
in all-night radio playing/listening
·
the number of
boxes of chocolates delivered to care home staff – in appreciation
·
the level of alcohol
consumption by teenagers
·
the impact on
air pollution levels or number of song birds heard in the city
·
the incidences
of online grooming and (re-)abusive sharing of inappropriate images or images
of abuse
·
the percentage
of people that gained ‘faith’ or lost ‘faith’, that joined in online worship or
stopped praying
·
the number of
people who ‘tweeted’ a little more kindly
·
the hair
length gain and the hair lost
·
the number of
condoms purchased
·
the symptoms
missed and treatment delayed
·
the ‘acres of print’
on the subject, the other news stories that failed to make it
·
the debt
incurred and number of loans taken out at exorbitant interest rates
·
the decibel
level of the chants at protests
·
the extent of poems
written, novels completed and blogs begun
·
the numbers of
arguments between parents and children
·
the ‘working
at home’ productivity levels
·
the percentage
of people who long for a return to normality v those who long for this to be a
tipping point towards a new normality
·
the proportion
of the population who said ‘furlough’ for the first time ever
·
the number of people
who felt they had to work despite suspecting that they were ill
·
the number and
effectiveness of neighbourhood support schemes initiated
·
the stress
levels of politicians approaching the daily briefings
·
the giving to
charities
·
the number of conceptions
above the norm
·
the ‘excess’
deaths recorded
·
the volume of
tears shed
·
…and all the
ones that you could add…
And ‽istis pondered how much ‘what counts’ for many perhaps can’t always be counted; whether ‘what is counted’ by some always counts or ever counts for others… how both quantitative and qualitative data could be brought together to form the richest of pictures.
In this year of perfect vision ‽istis wondered: if we could slice and dice these experiences (for ‘n’ is still greater than 1), gather the data, analyse and test it - then what findings might possibly emerge? What insights may be afforded through a window perhaps slightly more ajar? What conclusions may be drawn and what might be the implications and applications…
But perhaps the first application to hope for is one that assists tracking and tracing effectively – where in the world might we find that?
© Pistis
NB: further reflections linked to this week’s theme
and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily
indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders
