Democracy Has Prevailed.

July 5, 2020

A Quick Fact-Check Of Wendy Bell (SPOILERS: She's Either Lying OR She's Incompetent)

So how long into a Wendy Bell monologue do you need to go before you catch her in a lie?

I am sure there are days where she rants fact-free and thus, by definition, can't be lying (because she's not actually communicating any facts). But this past Thursday, it only took about a minute.

About 48 seconds in, she says:

Now, I gotta say I heard something from the governor earlier this week. It was Tuesday. It was on KDKA morning show with Larry and Kevin. They had the governor on and usually in his verbal spaghetti, we don't get a whole lot of answers. This wasn't that different.

But he said something that was unusual and this was in response to our county executive here in Allegheny County, deciding that because of a spike in the numbers [Wendy uses air quotes here], not a spike in hospitalizations, not a spike in deaths not a spike in anything other than, “Oh more people are testing positive because we're testing more people.”

Kinda weird how that kinda connects...

This is a lie.

If the current "spike in the numbers" was simply due to "testing more people" then the percentage of those being tested would be the same regardless of the numbers of people being tested (you following me, Wendy? It's simple arithmetic.)

But if we go to get the numbers (here) we find something at odds with Wendy's version of reality.

06/13/2020: About 0% of those tested were confirmed cases (2 out of 408)
06/14/2020: About 2% of those tested were confirmed cases (7 out of 294)
06/15/2020: About 1% of those tested were confirmed cases (11 out of 874)
06/16/2020: About 2% of those tested were confirmed cases (22 out of 1047)
06/17/2020: About 2% of those tested were confirmed cases (20 out of 908)
06/18/2020: About 4% of those tested were confirmed cases (27 out of 758)
06/19/2020: About 3% of those tested were confirmed cases (24 out of 851)
06/20/2020: About 5% of those tested were confirmed cases (27 out of 596)
06/21/2020: About 7% of those tested were confirmed cases (26 out of 391)
06/22/2020: About 5% of those tested were confirmed cases (59 out of 1254)
06/23/2020: About 6% of those tested were confirmed cases (101 out of 1579)
06/24/2020: About 7% of those tested were confirmed cases (98 out of 1462)
06/25/2020: About 10% of those tested were confirmed cases (103 out of 1088)
06/26/2020: About 10% of those tested were confirmed cases (121 out of 1251)
06/27/2020: About 11% of those tested were confirmed cases (116 out of 1027)
06/28/2020: About 8% of those tested were confirmed cases (78 out of 973)
06/29/2020: About 9% of those tested were confirmed cases (151 out of 1743)

While there is a marked increase in the numbers of tests (from 408 on June 13 to 1743 on June 29) there is also an increase in the percentage of those tested who test positive (from about 0% on June 13 to about 9% on June 29).

So when Wendy Bell says "more people are testing positive because we're testing more people" she is factually incorrect.

Numbers don't like, Wendy. You do, but the numbers don't.

There is, of course, another possibility here: Perhaps Wendy Bell simply didn't bother to check the numbers. Perhaps Wendy Bell went on the air and just didn't do her homework before telling her sizeable audience something that wasn't true - and what she told them could endanger their health.

If she chose to misinform her audience, she's lying. If she didn't bother checking and went on the air anyway, she's just incompetent.

Either way, people are going to get sick because of it.

Shame on you, Wendy Bell. And shame on KDKA Radio for letting her misinform her public.