Isn’t that a sad news that so many babies died in the year of 2016 who were less than a year old. Are you thinking the world is getting worst day by day? What if I say you aren’t thinking correctly for three reasons. First we aren’t comparing 4.2 million with any base number so we don’t know whether it increased or decreased from prior year. Secondly we get attracted to big numbers as 120 seconds is greater than 2 minutes for us. Las
That’s the same way any rare events get reported on a newspaper. It will be wrong to blame the journalist or the editor because they make more money when they get more views. It all lies in our hands to say no and not to fall for the trap. The year before the number was 4.5 million and back in 1950 the number was 14.4 million. Hasn’t there been a trend of decline? Shouldn’t we be happy for that? I truly understand that we need to decrease that number to greater extent but the progress that we are making is good too.
We are still missing on one more important aspect i.e. rate. What if less number of child are born and as a result the number has been decreasing? We need to look into the data for that. Back in 1950, 97 million babies were born. The mortality rate was 15 percent. Now in 2016 141 million babies were born and 4.2 million couldn’t see their first birth. The mortality rate was just 3 percent. Isn’t this a huge improvement from 15 % to 3%?
It may be a weird math with babies’ death. But a single number is always suspicious. Always look for the base number and the rate. That’s why such events get reported over media and we are sad about those instead we should be happy for the decline. Next time be sure to do a quick check before you jump to be sad
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Igniting Curiosity.. 
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