The truth is out there. Its just cheaper not to report it.

For something like a week, there has been tweeting and articles alluding to a decline in Corona Beer sales purportedly due to fears by the public over the spread of Corona virus, now renamed COVID-19.

It seemed an improbable story. But a lot of what passes for news seems improbable these days. A wait and see attitude is best. It struck me that this was imminently checkable. Beverage companies know how much is being sold in near real time. All someone needed to do was call the company and see if there was an actual decline in shipped units.

I continued to see the excitable headlines but no empirical reporting.

Yesterday, I came across something that indicated the story originated out of a survey of intentions rather than actual results. There was also an indication that the news accounts were conflating two categories in order to exaggerate the probability of a decline.

Today we have:

When my dad texted me abt whether the Coronavirus was pulling down Corona beer, I knew it was finally time to look at the data.

Corona sales (Extra, Familiar, Light & Premier) over the past 4 wks are up 3.1% by volume vs YA. Up 2.7% the yr before that.

So no effect. Carry on.

— Bart Watson (@BrewersStats) February 28, 2020

Not quite official but sure looks a much more likely representation of reality than the click bait headlines.