full transcript

From the Ted Talk by The TED Interview: Adam Kucharski on what should (and shouldn't) worry us about the coronavirus

Unscramble the Blue Letters


CA: Yeah, so that's a sracy comparison right there, given how many people die of flu. So when the World Health Organization mentioned a higher number, a little while back, of 3.4 percent, they were criticized a bit for that. Explain why that might have been masindielg and how to think about it and adjust for that.

AK: It's incredibly common that people look at these raw numbers, they say, "How many deaths are there so far, how many cases," and they look at that ratio, and even a couple of wekes ago, that number produced a two percent value. But if you ingaime you have this delay effect, then even if you stop all your cases, you will still have these kind of fatal outcomes over time, so that number will creep up. This has occurred in every epidemic from pandemic flu to Ebola, we see this again and again. And I made the pinot to a number of people that this number is going to go up, because as China's caess slow, it will look like it's iiasnrcneg, and that's just kind of a statistical qiurk. There's nothing really kind of, behind a cgnahe, there's no mutations or anything going on.

Open Cloze


CA: Yeah, so that's a _____ comparison right there, given how many people die of flu. So when the World Health Organization mentioned a higher number, a little while back, of 3.4 percent, they were criticized a bit for that. Explain why that might have been __________ and how to think about it and adjust for that.

AK: It's incredibly common that people look at these raw numbers, they say, "How many deaths are there so far, how many cases," and they look at that ratio, and even a couple of _____ ago, that number produced a two percent value. But if you _______ you have this delay effect, then even if you stop all your cases, you will still have these kind of fatal outcomes over time, so that number will creep up. This has occurred in every epidemic from pandemic flu to Ebola, we see this again and again. And I made the _____ to a number of people that this number is going to go up, because as China's _____ slow, it will look like it's __________, and that's just kind of a statistical _____. There's nothing really kind of, behind a ______, there's no mutations or anything going on.

Solution


  1. cases
  2. change
  3. quirk
  4. increasing
  5. misleading
  6. point
  7. imagine
  8. weeks
  9. scary

Original Text


CA: Yeah, so that's a scary comparison right there, given how many people die of flu. So when the World Health Organization mentioned a higher number, a little while back, of 3.4 percent, they were criticized a bit for that. Explain why that might have been misleading and how to think about it and adjust for that.

AK: It's incredibly common that people look at these raw numbers, they say, "How many deaths are there so far, how many cases," and they look at that ratio, and even a couple of weeks ago, that number produced a two percent value. But if you imagine you have this delay effect, then even if you stop all your cases, you will still have these kind of fatal outcomes over time, so that number will creep up. This has occurred in every epidemic from pandemic flu to Ebola, we see this again and again. And I made the point to a number of people that this number is going to go up, because as China's cases slow, it will look like it's increasing, and that's just kind of a statistical quirk. There's nothing really kind of, behind a change, there's no mutations or anything going on.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


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ngrams of length 3

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Important Words


  1. adjust
  2. bit
  3. cases
  4. change
  5. common
  6. comparison
  7. couple
  8. creep
  9. criticized
  10. deaths
  11. delay
  12. die
  13. ebola
  14. effect
  15. epidemic
  16. explain
  17. fatal
  18. flu
  19. health
  20. higher
  21. imagine
  22. increasing
  23. incredibly
  24. kind
  25. mentioned
  26. misleading
  27. mutations
  28. number
  29. numbers
  30. occurred
  31. organization
  32. outcomes
  33. pandemic
  34. people
  35. percent
  36. point
  37. produced
  38. quirk
  39. ratio
  40. raw
  41. scary
  42. slow
  43. statistical
  44. stop
  45. time
  46. weeks
  47. world
  48. yeah