Fox News and Vaccination Stats

A couple of confessions before I get underway.

1. I dislike Fox News. I dislike their politics, their journalistic standards...and, yes, their use of statistics. For example, check out this actual screenshot:

Along with other concerns, you may have noticed that the numbers add up to 120%.

2. At the outset of this newsletter, I’ll be saying something nice about Fox. Specifically, about their criticism of the way CNN handled vaccination stats in a recent report. 

Hopefully one of these confessions hasn't caused you to stop reading...

Although I’ll be saying a lot about Fox News here, the main purpose of this newsletter isn’t to praise (or damn) the organization, but rather to show why it’s important to be critical about “official” statistics reported by government agencies. Using the example of vaccination data, I will describe one case where Fox got it right, followed by one in which they were horribly wrong. Both cases illustrate why news organizations (and citizens) shouldn't uncritically accept “official” statistics provided by the government. 

My starting point is a story CNN ran on June 18 entitled “China's about to administer its billionth coronavirus shot. Yes you read that right.” The gist of the story was that in spite of a slow rollout, China had already administered over 945 million vaccines by the time the story appeared – about three times the number in the U.S. – and would soon be vaccinating their billionth citizen (a milestone they reportedly reached on June 20). That's more than 1/8 the population of the planet.

In response, Fox News ran a story the next day that contained, among other things, two criticisms of the CNN report.

First criticism: CNN's only source of vaccination data was China's National Health Commission, a cabinet-level agency of the national government. As CNN itself noted in its report, China's authoritarian government is “a top-down, one party system that is all-encompassing in reach.” The problem here – and I agree with Fox on this – is that statistical factoids provided by the Chinese government aren't trustworthy. Broadly speaking, you can't trust the numbers if you can't trust their source. 

Unfortunately, Fox supported this reasonable criticism of CNN's story with numerous tweets accusing CNN of being a mouthpiece for China, referring to CNN as the “China News Network”, and focusing on the accusations rather than the substantive issue. I consider this irresponsible journalism, even though I agree with the point Fox was making. 

(What would've been more “responsible”? For one thing, presenting evidence of the Chinese government's frequent deceptiveness with statistics. Fox had lots of examples to choose from. A prominent one is the way Beijing under-represents the extent and dangerousness of its air pollution, e.g., through its former practice of only reporting PM₁₀ levels (particulate matter of 10 microns in diameter or less), when PM_2.5 levels were well-known to be deadlier (see here for China's current approach, and here for new sources of concern - as well as for links to studies demonstrating misrepresentation of statistics across a variety of domains by the Chinese government.) 

Second criticism: The Chinese vaccination statistics in CNN's story weren't accompanied by effectiveness data. Here again, I think Fox was rightly concerned. The less effective a vaccine, the less impressive it would be that a billion citizens have been vaccinated. In other words, the CNN story left out important data that've would contextualized the Chinese vaccination stats, even if you happen to trust those stats. 

Actually Fox also neglected to include these data. Their story did include a tweet that the Chinese vaccine “doesn't work”, but that's a grossly inaccurate statement. The WHO estimates that Sinovac, the vaccine used in China, has 51% efficacy at preventing symptomatic infections, and 61% effectiveness has been documented among nearly 800,000 Uruguayans. Not the best outcomes one could hope for, as acknowledged by the head of China's own Center for Disease Control, since vaccines in use elsewhere, include the U.S., are closer to 90% effective. Still, 61% translates into public health benefits. However you interpret the effectiveness data, the main point is that CNN’s report was missing important (if hard-to-interpret) context that could've been provided by additional stats.

So, there you have it. Fox: 1. CNN: 0. However, I wouldn't conclude that Fox News does a better job of reporting statistics than CNN does, or vice versa. CNN gets it right sometimes. On the other hand, Fox has spread misinformation about COVID vaccination data. Here's one particularly nasty example: 

On May 6 of this year, Fox host Tucker Carlson told viewers that “more than 3,000” Americans have died from COVID-19 vaccines (further details here). The source of this number was the Vaccine Adverse Reporting System (VAERS). In a sense, VAERS seems like a highly credible source, as it’s co-managed by two U.S. government agencies, the CDC and FDA. However, in another sense it’s not completely credible, nor does it claim to be. Consider this important disclaimer from the VAERS website:  

“VAERS accepts reports of adverse events and reactions that occur following vaccination. Healthcare providers, vaccine manufacturers, and the public can submit reports to the system.... The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable. In large part, reports to VAERS are voluntary, which means they are subject to biases...”

Indeed, the VAERS dataset includes a woman who died in a car accident two weeks after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, a teenager who committed suicide eight days after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, and other cases in which the “adverse” event or reaction seems almost certainly unrelated to vaccinations (see here). Adverse effects do occur, but to say that “more than 3,000 people” have died as a result of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine is simply a misrepresentation. Tucker Carlson was either lying or mistaken. Too bad he doesn't subscribe to this newsletter!

Bottom line: News organizations, like the rest of us, shouldn’t uncritically trust “official” statistics reported by government agencies. The credibility of statistical information needs to be evaluated in light of whatever we can know about each source, the methodology behind the statistics, the source’s claims (and disclaimers) concerning the findings, and so on.  

Thanks for reading!