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paper-machine comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 9 - Less Wrong
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These two things are incompatible with each other. Perhaps Hogwarts is lying about the former.
Or, you know, they were talking about averages over the last few decades, not FOREVER.
That doesn't make much sense; Myrtle was described as the first fatality in a long time, which is why it was so shocking and nearly closed down Hogwarts completely - the consequence which caused Tom Riddle to back off and seal off the basilisk again. 5 decades is quite long enough for this to be a somewhat bizarrely low rate.
On the other hand, wizards are described as having very long lives on average, which is not very consistent with a high accident or suicide or homicide rate overall, and Hogwarts is a pretty small school, as the estimates go. Add in the claims of extraordinary Wizarding physical resilience (book 1, IIRC), and maybe that's enough to give the very low death rate.
Myrtle was a murder from an unknown assailant who could evade the protective wards of the school, and probably murder at will again -- "there's an uncaught murderer among your children" is a much more scary thing than an accidental fatality of the sort that I assume are still occasionally happening in other magical schools through negligence/etc.
When there's an accidental poisoning because some kid tried to brew an anti-acme potion, parents can just advise their children not to ever try anything as foolish as that -- and they even have the accidental death of the other kid as a warning for such foolishness...
I forget my Chamber of Secrets exactly, but wasn't Hagrid made the scapegoat for a fatal 'accident' and that was how Myrtle's death was explained away publicly?
Chapter 49:
In canon, Hagrid had brought the giant-spider Aragog at around the same time -- and it was thought to have accidentally escaped his watch and murdered Myrtle. (so it was accident/criminal negligence on the part of Hagrid, murder on the part of Aragog)
We don't know the exact details in the HPMOR-verse, ofcourse.
Ehh... that seems kind of hard to cover up. Myrtle's death caused a panic and nearly resulted in closing the school. Technically, "0% fatality rate" could mean four out of every thousand students die.