Data misreporting during the Covid-19 crisis: The role of political institutions
Benford&#x27;s law is not without critics, but the deviations measured and represented on the map would seem to directionally match the severity of policies that remove individual freedoms, and anecdotal reports about the severity of enforcement and ensuing controversy. I&#x27;m definitely seeing what I want to see in the data, and will readily admit the Benford technique is more of an investigative heuristic than a law in this case. However, I think the difference is while my opinions are absolutely influenced by the logic of some underlying beliefs, they&#x27;re necessary heuristics that facilitate risk hedging.<p>In my own case, personally, I am pretty sure Canada&#x27;s response policies are leveraging the pandemic as a pretext to impose a digital identity system designed to have the effect of reducing every person to a political minority of one, as a means to neutralize resistance to ever more radical non-consensual transformations of our society. Sure, get shots, take care of yourself, wear a mask if you think you are a source of risk. Rolling political compliance checks at every public gathering and turning principled people into an outgroup and a new underclass? No thanks. Even if it&#x27;s a small probability, the impact is so huge that it&#x27;s reasonable to index on mitigating it. There are reasonable and thoughtful people who are ready to draw a line. Data like this is pretty good, but even when it supports my particular flavour of ideology, I&#x27;d still treat it as an interesting anecdote, and not evidence.