Later, though, viewing the values per 100,000 people gives a sense of the pandemic’s relative strain on countries’ resources. Population matters least in the early stages of an epidemic because cases are likely to be highly concentrated in particular regions like Hubei or Lombardy. Viruses don’t respect borders, and the rate at which they spread is not affected by the overall population of the affected country. Unusually for cross-national data, adjusting for population isn’t strictly necessary when analysing the speed at which a virus spreads. On the more familiar linear scale, the same data looks like a hockey stick shooting upwards, which gives a better sense of the overall size of each country’s epidemic. On a log scale, an epidemic looks like a steep diagonal line that flattens towards a horizontal line as its rate of growth slows. By comparing the slopes of two lines, a log scale allows us to compare epidemics at a very early stage with those that are much more advanced, even though they have very different absolute numbers of cases or deaths. Log scales are particularly suited to displaying trends in relative rates of change, like a virus spreading. The vertical axis of our charts are shown using a logarithmic scale, where the same distance on the scale represents multiplying or dividing by the same amount, instead of adding or subtracting the same amount as is the case with a linear scale. The FT is tracking excess mortality - the difference between deaths from all causes during the pandemic and the historic seasonal average - in the handful of countries and municipalities that publish suitably recent data, and has reported on the specific circumstances in Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Turkey and the UK." Logarithmic or linear scales Some countries like France and the UK have even changed which deaths they include during the course of the epidemic.įor either measure, we use a seven-day rolling average to adjust for the impact of administrative delays to reporting new data over weekends. The most notable difference between countries’ Covid mortality figures is whether or not they include deaths outside hospitals, particularly in care homes. Confirmed case counts depend heavily on the extent of countries’ very different testing regimes, so higher totals may simply reflect more testing.ĭeaths are somewhat more reliable, but remain problematic because countries have different rules for what deaths to include in their official numbers. ![]() The lack of testing kits in places like the US makes it hard to know how many people are actually walking around with the virus.Comparing the spread of coronavirus in different countries is difficult using the data being released by governments. As of this writing, we’re nearing 200,000 global infections and over 7,000 deaths. The new strain has been dubbed COVID-19, and it has already spread much wider than SARS ever did. For example, the 2003 SARS outbreak was a strain of coronavirus called SARS-CoV. In a world where it’s easy to spread incorrect information, having an authoritative and easily digestible source like this can be essential.Ĭoronaviruses are a common cause of respiratory infections in humans - it’s one of the pathogens that can cause the “common cold.” However, some strains can be much more dangerous. ![]() The numbers seem to change every time you blink, but researchers at Johns Hopkins University have created a tool to track and visualize the outbreak in real-time. ![]() Many countries have enacted measures aimed at slowing the spread, but health authorities say new infections are still on the rise. The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) that began in Wuhan, China continues to spread across the globe.
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