I did this in July as we were seeing an explosion in COVID cases and I felt like it was really hard to gain any perspective on what was going on, especially in comparing the recent case surges in the southern border states to what happened in March and April in the Northeast.
"If I’m permitted an aside, it does bother me somewhat that states like Mississippi fall through the cracks in national reporting. Mississippi and South Carolina were both hit terribly by this recent surge and no one talks about them because they aren’t large states. That bothers me and I can’t explain it past the simple observation that I think these are important places worthy of our attention and concern."
I think another reason to be concerned is that it's indicative of the media and our national conversation still not having moved beyond the point of fixating on the largest raw numbers, a point we should be past.
Great analysis and terrific graphs. Thank you for both, as well as for your intellectual honesty in this whole endeavor. Two questions: (1) Have you explained somewhere how you picked the levels of the caution line and the very-bad-death line? They seem like reasonable judgment calls but I'd like to understand your thought process better on both. (2) Have you played with graphing deaths/case to see if anything interesting pops out of the comparisons? You have mentioned that ratio a few times.
"If I’m permitted an aside, it does bother me somewhat that states like Mississippi fall through the cracks in national reporting. Mississippi and South Carolina were both hit terribly by this recent surge and no one talks about them because they aren’t large states. That bothers me and I can’t explain it past the simple observation that I think these are important places worthy of our attention and concern."
I think another reason to be concerned is that it's indicative of the media and our national conversation still not having moved beyond the point of fixating on the largest raw numbers, a point we should be past.
Great analysis and terrific graphs. Thank you for both, as well as for your intellectual honesty in this whole endeavor. Two questions: (1) Have you explained somewhere how you picked the levels of the caution line and the very-bad-death line? They seem like reasonable judgment calls but I'd like to understand your thought process better on both. (2) Have you played with graphing deaths/case to see if anything interesting pops out of the comparisons? You have mentioned that ratio a few times.