Greece’s National Health Care organization EODY must have certainly believed that the “Ancient Greek Spirit” is eternal and every Greek hides a Pythagoras inside him – a mathematician… . Therefore, it issued its first weekly bulletin on Tuesday based on abysmal and fuzzy mathematics formulas that the average Greek has to solve if he wanted to know how many cases of coronavirus and how many Covid-related deaths occurred in the week July 4-10, 2022.
The published data of EODY were anything but clear, and Greeks, media and the public, had to make their own additional calculations to find out how many cases in total were confirmed based on the given formula “13,623 cases of COVID-19 per million population (18% weekly change) of which reinfections account for 17% of infections.”
In the same spirit, deaths were published as “16 deaths of COVID-19 patients per million population (33% weekly change).”
Creative ambiguity, for sure: as there were no (+) or (-) in front of the percentage of the weekly change anyone could interpret according to liking.
Not to mention that despite EODY assurances that the weekly data would be better, and more and would have more quality and quantity, many of us missed that numbers of vaccinated and partly/non-vaccinated patients in Covid-ICUs.
As expected, the weekly EODY coronavirus bulletin became the target of sharp criticism decorated with ironic comments and jokes all over Greek social media.Criticism came also by several health experts mostly active abroad and a part of the Greek mainstream media.
“The perennial lack of credibility of the EODY was clearly revealed yesterday during the publication of the weekly report on the cases of coronavirus,” noted daily ethnos.
“The largest Public Health Organization in our country, in the midst of concern about the new wave of the pandemic, chose to use an… unexplained mathematical formula to reveal the number of cases of the last week.
To calculate the reduction one would have to have at least a degree in maths, if not 2 to 3 master’s degrees, to understand how many cases the country finally had in the last week.
The super-mathematical formula of EODY officials, proved not a simple possible sloppiness, but at least that the decision-makers are out of touch with… reality – unless the goal was to “cook” the confirmed infection and the deaths.”
Recalling the media and public experience with EODY communication in the last 2.5-pandemic years, ethnos mentioned the example of Mykonos that was temporarily placed in “quarantine” in previous virus-waves due to innumerable cases, but suddenly within a few days the epidemiological load dropped steeply, as a result of which the island “opened” again.
“Of course, those who in the past had dared to criticized EODY’s credibility, were accused of being anti-government or even conspiracy theorists just because they were looking for the truth behind the numbers,” stressed ethnos.gr
“And to think that the reference week of the weekly bulletin was covered by EODY’s daily bulletin, each and every day from July 4 to July 10,” said the smart Pythagoras* inside me.
*Pythagoras (570 BC-495 BC) was a Greek philosopher who made important developments in mathematics, astronomy, and the theory of music. The theorem he proved is known as Pythagoras’s theorem.
We need to stop over analysing COVID. It is here to stay, we must live with it. It must be a personal choice if you wear a mask or not. I do not criticise those who choose to wear a mask, and they should not criticise me if I choose not to. We all make our own decisions as to our health and well being. I have tried to live a normal life for the past 2 years, I have 4 vaccinations, I have traveled throughout Europe, I have been sensible and respectful of others…….life is for living…..
It’s not about masks here, it is about Greece’s official health org publishing crap.
The maths is very simple. It is summer. Summer means tourists. Tourists means revenue. If COVID is bad tourists might not come. QED Pretend there is no COVID.
To be fair not many people are dying and those that are are mostly old and receiving a pension so win-win as far as the government is concerned.
I choose to wear a mask or not depending on the number of current cases on the island. This fog of statistics helps and informs no one and could actually lead to more cases and ultimately more deaths if people don’t know or understand where and when the risks are greatest. But of course, it’s summer, restrictions and fines will no doubt be put in place in September to punish us for their lack of clarity.