President Moon Urges "Accurate and Transparent Communication"... Yet Government Seems Preoccupied with Promoting Achievements?
[Asia Economy Reporter Son Sun-hee] The daily confirmed cases graph of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) disclosed on the Blue House website is causing controversy for providing incorrect information. It is a typical visual distortion technique that exaggerates the slope by arbitrarily adjusting the horizontal axis intervals.
On the 27th, the main page of the Blue House website provides the trend of daily confirmed and recovered COVID-19 cases in South Korea from the 29th of last month to the previous day. Since the 10th, the Blue House has revamped the website to provide such status updates and frequently updates the confirmed cases status.
However, a closer look at the graph reveals that the horizontal axis intervals, which should be evenly divided, are arbitrarily adjusted from as long as 5 days to as short as one day. The part showing the proper 'daily' confirmed cases is only the recent four days of data displayed on a daily basis from the 22nd. It appears to be recently updated as it reflects data up to the previous day.
If the intervals are kept equal but the timing of the data points is arbitrarily adjusted, the slope of the graph can change drastically, potentially distorting the information about the trend of confirmed cases.
In fact, the data shows an optical illusion where the number of daily confirmed cases, which was highest at 916 on the 29th of last month, suddenly drops sharply to 516 in just one day.
However, this is not 'daily' data but data at 4-day intervals. Looking at the actual daily confirmed cases during that period, the numbers were 805 (March 1), 476 (2), 600 (3), and 516 (4), showing two inflection points. But the graph disclosed by the Blue House does not reflect this at all.
This visual distortion technique is also evident in the 'Cumulative Recovered/Patients Under Treatment Trend' graph displayed on the right side of the same graph. Additionally, there are criticisms that applying the 'confirmed cases' based on daily new cases and 'recovered cases' based on cumulative numbers differently causes confusion.
A Blue House Digital Communication Center official in charge of website management explained, "Due to spatial limitations on the (website), it was designed considering readability," and added, "The graph is produced by an external company using Google tools."
Some interpret the Blue House's distortion of data as an error caused by an excessive attempt to promote the 'declining trend of confirmed cases.' However, this contradicts President Moon Jae-in's intention to provide the public with 'accurate and transparent' information regarding COVID-19.
On January 30th, when COVID-19 began to spread in South Korea, President Moon personally chaired a comprehensive COVID-19 response meeting and said, "The government can provide the most accurate information as quickly as possible," and urged, "I hope all necessary information is disclosed transparently, promptly, and as detailed as possible from the public's perspective to prevent unnecessary misunderstandings and speculation."
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