Today the cases across the globe surpassed half a million. The purpose of this blog is to look at the publicly available data in different ways. My aim is to increase awareness beyond the state and national totals. However, if you are interested in total numbers, I suggest the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Page. For those of you that don't know, the website originally started with one professor and her two doctoral students updating the data. Hopefully, they have more help now.
Today, there will be a total of five states included in the visual analysis. Day one (3/24/20) began with Indiana and Maryland. Yesterday (3/25/20), I added in Missouri. Today, Iowa and Michigan are included. The addition of these two states demonstrates how the coronavirus impacts different states. Similar to the previous two days, I will start with the overall totals for the states. However, Figure 1 only includes the first four states, while Figure 2 includes all five. The reasoning for this will be clear.
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| Figure 1. Total Cases of COVID over Time for Four States |
In Figure 1, you can see that Iowa is on a different trend, at this time, compared to the other three states. Exploring the population data (see Table 1), Iowa has the lowest population density of the five states. The other three states (Maryland, Indiana, and Missouri) are on somewhat similar growth trends at this time.
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| Table 1. Total Population, Square Miles, and Population Density for Five States. |
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| Figure 2. Total Cases of COVID over Time for Five States |
The final piece of data for today is to examine how Michigan and Iowa compare to the other three states in growth trend, once 15 cases were diagnosed. Figure 3 represents the data after the first 15 cases were diagnosed and reported. For instance, Day 1 for Iowa is March 12, Maryland is March 13, Michigan is March 13, Indiana is March 14, and Missouri is March 19. The purpose for looking at the data in this way is to have the states at a similar starting point.
This examination of the data demonstrates Iowa's very slow growth trend, compared to the other states. A look back to Table 1 shows Iowa has the lowest population density. However, population density is not the entire story, since Maryland's population density is over three times that of Michigan. Inevitably, there are policy differences at play here as well. In other words, how and when the state level government responded to the pandemic.
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| Figure 3. Trend Lines of COVID after the First 15 Cases were Reported in Five States. |
Finally, I had a request to include mortality in my data. I have consciously avoided that piece thus far. However, I won't be able to avoid it forever. I am also working on a separate post regarding the data. Unfortunately, zero states' websites show the cases over time at this point. This means I am digging through various postings at the state level or local media reporting in each state. As accountability, I will post all the resources I have used to date to track this data.
Action makes a difference. Stay home. Stay safe. Stay healthy.
JRB
Good stuff Jen!!
ReplyDeleteI like looking at the data as well. Never thought that Iowa was about the same size as Michigan nor that much bigger than Indiana.
Unfortunately we will never know the actual numbers of infected. If someone felt ill enough to go get tested and their Dr agreed then that is saying something about this.
Absolutely, we are limited to those who are actually tested since the US does not have the capacity to test everyone who needs testing.
DeleteOne thing that I keep hearing is all the tests IA has been doing that have come back negative. Almost seems like they aren't always sticking to the stringent test policies they put into place.
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