ORIGINAL: obvert
ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
ORIGINAL: obvert
Any charts that correct for per capita cases, obvert? The United States is the third most populous country in the world. Comparing raw case numbers for the trajectory compared to a place like Switzerland with less than 10% of our population seems spurious.Why spurious? China and India are here too.
The interest for me, and this may just be for me, is to see the doubling rate, which is not different depending on population , right?
It's all spurious since we don't know anything about "real numbers" but if this does show evidence of the curves, the trajectories, the successes and more difficult areas, then it's useful as a comparative tool.
It's more useful when you have some knowledge of testing programs and other factors as we do on this thread. So I see it as one of the tools, not a comprehensive one. Maybe one could be designed with every interesting factor, but I think it could become more difficult to read quickly.
So as the US stays above the doubling every three day curve we know that is because to the recent surge in testing, and when it dips under that it'll be likely that it's heading toward the peak of the curve.
I'd rather see raw case numbers per capita to account for larger populations and avoid the extrapolation from small sample sizes/small population countries. By looking at 'cumulative numbers of confirmed cases' on the X axis and 'number of days since 100th case' on the Y, it gives a picture that-without accounting for vastly different populations-is misleading.
If you replaced the raw numbers X axis with a per capita numbers, the US curve would look very different (lower) than Spain, France, Germany or most of the other countries sandwiched into that upper graph major band. Of course, China's curve would be significantly lower too. Italy and Spain would remain standouts.
I think you miss the point. The curve in relation to the total population is not what this is trying to show. that is some other visual I've not seen. interesting, sure, but this is about doubling speed of the virus cases. So comparing countries without population totals is actually just fine for that.
It's entirely possible to draw different conclusions from the same data displayed. It's not that I think the chart is inaccurate, but I don't think the data displayed adequately support the conclusion that the average end user is likely to draw from it. I think most users would look at this graph and try to glean 'how much is a given country in a problematic situation' based upon the curve. I don't think the mathematical curiosity about doubling speed of the virus cases (particularly with all the known confounders about the verity of this data) is as endearing as other fundamentals that are population adjusted. Your mileage may vary.
