Originally published at: An alarming graph shows Monkeypox cases rising rapidly | Boing Boing
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boring statistician warning mode: see that “Cumulative confirmed cases” in the graph title? That’s a two-fer for generating a scary chart. First the “cumulative” that means it has to be rising. Can’t “cumulative” and go down. Now the “confirmed”; we’ve just got started really checking for the population abundance of this condition in the developed countries, so there’s a whole lot of “well, only if you actually look will you actually discover” effect. That is, some percent of these cases could’ve been around for a while but we weren’t testing for them. This also causes such trend lines to jet off upwards. OK… Frink out; and if you’re at risk then for gawdsakes see if you can get vaccinated!
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The important aspect is the inflection of the curve–and that looks exponential, although we don’t really have enough data to be sure.
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You are absolutely correct. Which is why we should (1) use 7 day moving averages, and (2) get used to using logarithmic charts, especiallly when evalutating the changing rates of infections in a pandemic. With that in mind, here’s a less “scary”, but equally (or more) informative version. It looks like – worldwide – new infections are starting to stabilize at 800/day. Considering that 3 months ago, the figure was 1.7 new infections per day, that is alarming, but the new-infection rate does seem to be stabilizing at ~800/day for the past couple of weeks (worldwide). Note that the daily infection figures are still rising pretty quickly in the USA, but are stable (or decreasing) in Canada, UK and Germany. I didn’t check other countries.
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The good news is we all know what to do.
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And half the people in the U.S. will refuse to do it.
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because they just add monkeypox to the long list of things they absolutely do not believe are real. like the covid-deniers who kept at it right up to the moment they unplugged the life support. what can ever be done about those types of people?
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If you’re a human being you are at risk. I don’t want that shit. Haven’t heard one single word about where I can get the vaccine.
The CDC’s whole deal was “we’re here if smallpox comes back”. Now they’ve got a smallpox outbreak on easy mode and where are they?
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It’s the story as old as time… erm… well… as old as 2020. #HumanityFTW
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