Just a personal note on data in general.
When I was working it was my job to analyze businesses to determine whether or not we should approve loans, for example, on new construction.
We looked at tons of data—population, income, age, employment, occupancy at similar places, financial statements, industry statistics, etc etc etc.
None of that data was fully accurate. All of it had flaws, and it was our job to understand the flaws and figure out way to determine how significant they were, and estimate what the real numbers were.
We _never_ assumed _anyone_ was telling the truth about _anything.
We developed metrics, ways of comparing the data to other data so we could do a “common sense” check of what relationships made sense.
After looking at enough data, we could forecast future occupancy and financial performance within a percent or two, despite everybody lying to us.
People lying about data does not make it useless—it just means you have to work a little harder and be a little smarter.
Here is a piece of data. Do I believe it? You betcha.
https://twitter.com/lookner/status/1243685306005688327
89 workers at Mass General Hospital in Boston now have coronavirus — number has more than doubled since yesterday