Be wary of bad math vis a vis corona virus

For example a headline blared that the Italian death toll rose by 16% in one day.

The death toll went from 2503 to 2158.  Thats out of a population of 60 million.

Which means the % of Italians who died went from 0.004% to 0.004%--or more precisely from 0.0036%  to 0.0041%.

Given that the average age of people dying from the virus is around 80 in Italy that means that the vast majority of Italians are basically safe.

But by citing a 16% growth the media is stoking unnecessary fear.

What matters are what are the chances that any individual will die and what are the chances that enough people who maintain the economy will die.

Fortunately to date it appears that both those probabilities are very low indeed.  But confusing use of math to create scare headlines won't help us.

What we need know is for people to just calm down, take the recommended precautions, and not panic.