New-found love of statistics can save lives

By Rong Xiaoqing Source:Global Times Published: 2013-4-11 20:18:01

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT
Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

 

As a new strain of the bird flu virus threatens China, many things are being disclosed: new infection cases, vaccines, hundreds and thousands of slaughtered chickens and pigeons, and empty shelves in pharmacies that used to carry the herbal medicine banlangen.

But the drama started with two simple figures, not "7" and "9," as in the name of the virus H7N9, but "2" and "20." It was on March 31, the 20th day after the second human life was claimed by the infection, that China's National Health and Family Planning Commission told the public about the discovery of this life threatening new virus.

Some media questioned whether these figures are another frustrating sign of the government's ineptness in emergency management and its long-time tendency of covering up in the excuse of national stability. But most domestic as well as international experts have given Beijing a thumbs up. There is a fine line between timely alerts and unnecessary panic inducing announcements, and Beijing seems to have gotten it right this time.

To many observers, this is a sharp U-turn from what happened during the SARS epidemic 10 years ago, when the authorities tried to silence the media, hide infected patients from the inspectors from the World Health Organization and lie about the scale of the infection.

But what the "2" and the "20" represent is not only a milestone in a decade but a milestone in thousands of years.

It is a departure from the insensitivity to numbers in traditional Chinese culture and a stride toward a modern society where accuracy, transparency and accountability are critical.

The Chinese are known for being good at math. But it doesn't mean we are good at numbers. Our civilization took a different route from the mathematics-driven ancient Greek and Egyptian civilizations, and cultivated mainly meditation and epiphany-oriented philosophy. We did invent the abacus. But to us numbers were there only for calculation, not for logic and reasoning. 

This could easily confuse Westerners. In his 1894 book Chinese Characteristics, US missionary Arthur Henderson Smith, who spent 54 years in China, dedicated a whole chapter "The Disregard of Accuracy" to document his frustration.

The lack of accuracy is still a part of our life in modern China. We like to say "a few" and "several" rather than specifics. We don't think the date we were born has anything to do with our ages. And our statistics in many fields are inadequate. Maybe there is one silver lining though: We don't easily fall for the "$9.99" trick by retailers either. To us $9 is no different from $10, let along $9.99.

This gives us a lot of leeway for exaggeration, vagueness and even fakery. And when such figures are released with the official seal, they either make people look crazy, like the wild claim that one mu (666 square meters) of land could grow 100,000 jin (50,000 kilograms) of rice during the Great Leap Forward (1959-61), or make skeptical people lose trust in the government. And little by little, many people have developed a numbness toward figures, even death tolls.

But this element of our traditional culture is quickly changing. Be it the discussion between 7 percent and 8 percent when the annual growth target for GDP is set, or the spotlight on the air pollution indicator PM 2.5, more and more people have realized how honest, accurate and exact numbers relate to our rights, life quality and to the future of the country. And the government seems to be taking note too.

What needs to be kept in mind is that although numbers don't lie, it doesn't mean they all point in the same direction. Even accurate numbers can lead to different interpretations and be manipulated to serve special interests. And it would be naïve to think that numbers can give us a world where right and wrong is clear-cut. But when a number as low as two hits the public radar of sensibility, it is a good sign that more lives will be saved than wasted.



The author is a New York-based journalist. rong_xiaoqing@hotmail.com



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