Sunday, April 5, 2020

An irritating logical error that permeates the COVID-19 discussion

Apparently many people in influential media outlets don't know that the proposition
"most patients who die of COVID19 have [a given precondition]"
doesn't imply the proposition
"most COVID19 patients with [a given precondition] die."
This is a logic error; it's made in all sorts of news outlets and social media right now. 

Don't take my word that this is a logic error; here's a counter-example: