Month: June 2020

Graphs day 82, pandemic day 88, day 159 since the first cases were diagnosed.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 6,835,723

Total deaths: 398,636

It looks like we’ll hit 400,000 deaths worldwide tomorrow, four days after my initial prediction. The maps are back today! Also India is back in the graphs, shown by the chocolate brown line.

Cases per million people by country

Cases per million people by country, first with a map of today’s case rates per million people in various countries in Europe and the Americas:

and as a graph comparing case rates on an even scale from each country’s “day zero,” the date on which cases reached 1 in 1,000,000:

Deaths per million people by country

Deaths per million people for selected countries shown on a map:

and as a graph on an even scale:

Coming up tomorrow: back on the regular Monday-Wednesday-Friday posting schedule, I’ll look at some other ways of plotting case data.

Want to try out some other ways for yourself? You can get the data that I used to make these graphs from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template (version 3.3). I’d love to see what you can build with it, and I’m happy to help you figure it out!

Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic comes to an end.

Graphs day 81, pandemic day 87, day 158 since the first cases were diagnosed.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 6,706,022

Total deaths: 394,713

In today’s update, we look at how cases and deaths stack up against my predictions, and learn an important lesson about data visualization. And at the request of my awesome friend Jeremy, we look at cases and deaths in Ireland, in place of India. As you’ll see, there’s not much reason to keep following Ireland, so we’ll return to following India tomorrow.

Cases and deaths worldwide

Ever since I issued my predictions on May 17th, I’ve been tracking how my predictions match up with reality. We have continuously seen how the curve of cases (red dots) is running far ahead of the predictions (black line):

When I was graphing deaths on the same scale, it looked like cases were way ahead my prediction, and deaths were slightly behind my prediction. But here’s what happens when I split deaths into a separate graphs (deaths are the purple dots, the prediction is again the black line):

Deaths are falling behind my prediction just as dramatically as cases are rising ahead. There’s an important lesson here:

When you make a graph, always use the most appropriate scale to show the effects you want to show!

Still no maps today, and it’s an odd-numbered day. Let’s look at case and deaths by country from mid-February to the present.

Cases per million people by country

Cases per million people by country – India is gone this week in favor of Ireland (lavender). All countries are labeled as usual; percentages indicate the case fatality rate in each country, from 0.6 percent in Belarus to 11 percent in Sweden. Also note that I fixed the image so you can click on it for a larger version.

The curve for Ireland is high, but it’s been almost completely flat since late May. Meanwhile, Chile is the Energerizer Bunny of countries – cases keep going and going and going…

Deaths per million people by country

Same color scheme as before, but now showing deaths per million people by country – again with Ireland as lavender, and again clickable:

Deaths in Ireland are just as flat as cases. So there’s no reason to continue tracking Ireland. We’ll return to tracking India tomorrow.

Want to try it yourself? Try it yourself! You can get the data that I used to make these graphs from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template (version 3.3). I’d love to see what you can build with it, and I’m happy to help you figure it out!

Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic comes to an end.

Graphs day 80, pandemic day 86, day 157 since the first cases were diagnosed.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 6,603,329

Total deaths: 391,732

Cases and deaths continue to grow at a steady rate. Cases continue to run ahead of my May 16th estimate (black line), and deaths continue to run behind.

No maps today, because another change to the ECDC schema once again broke my Python script. I should really figure out what to do about that. And 80 is an even-numbered day, so we’ll look at the rate of cases on an even scale, as days elapsed since the case rate reached 1 in 1,000,000.

Cases per million people by country

Chile is still in the lead for cases per million people, and cases there blew past 6,000 per million today. So I have had to rescale the graph again; it now runs from 0 to 7,000 cases per million. At the rate that cases in Chile are growing, I’ll probably need to rescale again soon.

Notice also the bumps in cases in both Sweden and Brazil.

Deaths per million people by country

Since I rescaled the vertical axis of cases to have a maximum of 7,000 per million, it made sense to rescale the vertical axis of deaths to a maximum of 700 per million.

Brazil and Peru had been trending close together, but Brazil has now opened a sizable lead. The rate of deaths in the U.S. is slowing down, and that is great news. Hopefully that trend will continue.

Want to try out some graphs for yourself? You can get the data that I used to make these graphs from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template (version 3.3). I’d love to see what you can build with it, and I’m happy to help you figure it out!

Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic comes to an end.

Graphs day 79, pandemic day 85, day 156 since the first cases were diagnosed.

If you didn’t see my special guest post on the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, take a look now.

Total cases of COVID-19 diagnosed worldwide: 6,475,644

Total deaths: 386,544

Today is the day I predicted that we would reach 400,000 deaths worldwide – and we are at only 386,544. I am very happy to be wrong – 13,456 times happy, to be exact. Here are the current worldwide cases and deaths (dots) and the track of my predictions of May 16th (black lines).

I’m not sure I can explain why the number of deaths is running behind my prediction even as the number of cases far exceeds my prediction, but I’ll take it.

Just the usual maps of Europe and South America today, but we’ll check back in with the whole world soon. And it’s an odd-numbered day, so we’ll look at the rate of cases and deaths by day from mid-February to day.

Cases per million people by country

Cases per million people – first the rate today displayed on a map:

Chile has further increased its lead over the other countries we track:

Yesterday we noted that cases in Peru had flattened, and I suspected that it was just a delay in reporting. Called it – cases in Peru are way up today.

Deaths per million people by country

Now that we’re not regularly tracking Belgium and its unusually high number of deaths, the graphs were starting to look lonely. So I rescaled both map and graph to have a maximum of 600 deaths per million people.

First the map:

and now the graph:

Sadly, it looks like we’ll need to rescale again tomorrow, as the U.K. nears 600 deaths per million people.

Want to rescale the graphs yourself? Want to make totally new graphs? I’d love to see what you can do to visualize the data! You can get the data that I used to make these graphs from the European Centers for Disease Control’s Coronavirus Source Data; choose “all four metrics.” You are welcome to use my Excel template (version 3.3). I’d love to see what you can build with it, and I’m happy to help you figure it out!

Update tomorrow, and every day after that until this pandemic comes to an end.

Nimen hao, comrades! This is the Grass Mud Horse with a special message.

On this day in 1989, nothing happened.

Our glorious People’s Republic experienced a temporary adjustment to our population, as would have happened if some members of our glorious nation were depopluated. Except they weren’t.

Perhaps some ideology was expressed, but such ideology is no longer relevant.

Certainly no one was “killed” by the People’s Liberation Army. See the picture below: there was no death, there was only the Grass Mud Horse (Editor’s note + content warning: please click on the photo to see what actually happened).

The glorious river crab (河蟹, héxiè) reminds you to put on your three wristwatches (帶三個錶, dài sān ge biÇŽo) and join our harmonious society led by our Dear Leader (pictured below).

Our Dear Leader is the greatest leader in the history of the world. No other leader has ever been so great. He will be our Dear Leader forever. All glory to our Dear Leader!

Comrade, remember the Three Laws of the Grass Mud Horse:

1. The government is always right.
2. If the government is wrong, see Rule 1.
3. If the government is still wrong, see Rule 2.

So if the government says that no helicopters were used to disperse and possibly fire on the protestors, then no helicopters were used to disperse and possibly fire on the protestors. Wait, did I say “protestors”? There were no protestors either.

There may have been some riots and violent looters, and the government may have taken some action to protect you from them. The government only wants to protect you. The government is always right.

But what happened to these thugs, if there were any thugs, which there weren’t? They were certainly not massacred by the People’s Liberation Army. And definitely not by any helicopters. Because there were no helicopters.

Enjoy a prosperous and obedient year in our glorious nation!

Now back to Jordan.

Note from Jordan: Thanks to the Grass Mud Horse for this special post, which… wait, did you think he was talking about China?