Hazards and fallacies of social measurements: global indicators in the pandemic

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, efforts to quantitatively measure the global health situation and/or governments’ reaction vis-à-vis the pandemic have flourished. In spite of the significance of data in the fight against the pandemic, however, such global knowledge is largely questionable, insofar as it exposes itself to the many hazards and fallacies associated with global attempts to frame the social world in numbers. This is why the paper attempts to identify the hazards and fallacies most commonly associated with global measurements of social phenomena and to verify whether and to what extent these hazards and fallacies affect numerical representations of the pandemic and its effects. To this end, the paper analyses ten English-language global numerical initiatives that were launched between January and May 2020, and reviews them in light of existing critical literature on global numbers. The aim is to provide a deeper understanding of global measurements of health and related law-and-policy measures, and to suggest caution about their use as a basis for knowledge and action in the context of the pandemic.