Streuspanne – Statistics and Its Curiosities

Today's episode is all about the topic of chance. How is the term »coincidence« defined mathematically and what conclusions arise from this for everyday situations that we interpret as coincidence? What distinguishes the world of quantum mechanics from the macrophysical one in this respect? What role do cats play, and what chances of success would an omniscient demon have in a game of dice? As always, we answer these and a few more questions for you from the perspective of statistics.

Last year, we addressed the topic of corona testing and its reliability in a series of blog posts. We received a question from a reader about this series: How much does the reliability of antigen tests increase if you test yourself more than once? Answers are provided by our blogging statisticians Sascha Feth and Jochen Fiedler.

Today's episode is all about so-called »embarrassing characteristics«. Alcohol problems, doping in sports and the partially still sensitive topic of corona vaccination – our blogging statisticians tell us what role social desirability plays and how science deals with this problem. In addition to methods from science, Dr. Sascha Feth and Dr. Jochen Fiedler also take a closer look at the unreported number of Corona infections and the start of the pandemic in Italy and Germany. As always, Esther Packullat guides the podcast with questions.

In our podcast, we have already talked about how vaccine effectiveness is calculated. We mainly referred to the registration studies. Now millions of people have been vaccinated and we have a lot of new data. Shouldn't we know better now how effective vaccination is?

The probability calculus was invented in the 16th century in the first place only so that noblemen would do better at gambling. What is left of it today? Do statisticians have an advantage in Lotto, roulette and the like and win more often?

Having dealt with apparent contradictions between statistical measures in the last blog post, we now delve deeper into how local incidences are determined. There have been occasional criticisms in the German media that the incidences reported by the RKI are too low in some counties. We want to address the question: How large is this effect and how comparable are incidences in different regions?

Just in time for the end of 2020, we were surprised to learn that a mutation of the Corona virus is circulating in England. It is not said to be more deadly, but more contagious. Directly, neighboring countries have expressed concern that the mutation could also reach them. So let's ask ourselves today: can we tell from the reported infection numbers if something like this has happened?

The blog Streuspanne has been around for over two years now. Time for an interim balance right at the beginning of the year. In this interview, our bloggers Sascha Feth and Jochen Fiedler look back, talk about developments, goals, the motivation behind it, and the statistical future.

Here in the blog we have recently dealt with the dark figure of corona infections and the statistical characteristics of the tests. This time we ask ourselves the question: If we take measures today, will they affect all age groups at the same time?

Recently, we looked at the extent to which incomplete infection figures in the Corona pandemic can be compared with warranty data for vehicle components. Today, we use statistical quality control to reject some conspiracy theories surrounding Covid-19.