Jeg synes vel personlig ikke det er mer misvisende enn å bruke den relative økningen i dette tilfellet:
"54,906 people with the new covid variant were identified, and these were matched with 54,906 people with the older variants. Among those with the new variant, 227 patients died (0,41%). Among those with the old variants, 141 people died (0,26%).
So, the new variant does appear to be a little bit deadlier than the older variants, 0,15% deadlier to be precise. To put this in perspective, for every 700 people who develop covid due to the new variant, you can expect one extra death, as compared with getting covid due to the older variants.
You could of course, like the mass media do, focus on relative risk, and say that the new variant is 61% deadlier, or “up to 100% deadlier” as Al-Jazeera state in their headline (based on looking at the upper end of the confidence interval), but in this instance, looking at the absolute risk gives a much clearer understanding of how deadly the new variant actually is, don’t you think?"
Det er også grunn til å merke seg at de som gjorde dette forsøket kuttet endel hjørner i forutsetningene, feks at ingen under 30 år var med, samt at de tok med alle dødsfall innen 28 dager etter positiv PCR test (uten noen vurdering av om de døde av kåråna eller ikke). Det er heller ikke umiddelbart enkelt å identifisere hvem som hadde "gammel" og "ny" kåråna.