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This worse-than-useless #COVID19 graph is making the rounds.
The problem with it is in the early stages, epidemics spread at the same rate irrespective of country size.
When you divide by population, you create a misleading illusion of lower R0 in bigger countries. https://twitter.com/edrennie77/status/1249028359855759361
The problem with it is in the early stages, epidemics spread at the same rate irrespective of country size.
When you divide by population, you create a misleading illusion of lower R0 in bigger countries. https://twitter.com/edrennie77/status/1249028359855759361
h/t @FearIsNotPanic
OK, so my mentions are full of people telling me that I'm wrong because the exponential growth rate of an epidemic is the same as the growth rate of an epidemic divided by any constant.
That's true. But that's not what this graph shows, because it's on a linear scale.
That's true. But that's not what this graph shows, because it's on a linear scale.
Let's look at an example. Here are two populations, one of 100,000 people and one of 1,000,000 people. In both populations a single case doubles every 5 days. On the x axis is days since first infection. On the y, fraction of the population infected.
