The Washington Post last week made a startling claim:

"Even with the limited school reopenings so far, the disproportionate number of teachers appearing in covid-19 obituaries is striking."

I had not heard of this statistic before. You probably haven't either. No one has.

That's because it doesn't exist.

We know that, because when asked, The Washington Post couldn't produce any.

They finally responded this week, not with any substantiating data, but with an explanation.

"Dana's full sentence -- in particular the phrase ‘is striking' -- makes clear that this his (sic) subjective interpretation based on his own reading of obituaries, as he notes, not a representation of scientific research."

Subjective interpretations are things like, "I prefer the color red," and, "Kamala Harris's laugh makes me want to impale my eardrums with railroad spikes."

That teachers are appearing in disproportionate numbers in obituaries is not supposed to be a subjective interpretation, striking or not. We really shouldn't care how the author of the piece, Dana Milbank, "feels" about the statistical makeup of obituaries by occupation. That sounds like something that should still be a stone-cold verifiable fact. Or not.

But what the heck, this could be useful. Never mind what President Trump could do freed from fact checks, well, more freed from fact checks, what about the rest of us?

"Hey honey, even with the limited amount of soap I used so far, the dishes are all clean. They don't look it? Well, I believe I made it clear that within the proper context that was a subjective interpretation and of course I can sleep on the couch tonight."

Okay, probably best to leave the subjective interpreting to the pros.