What can wiggly lines on a graph tell us? Depends on whether you think math is raaacist
One of the basic tools researchers use to learn about new phenomena, like the chinese virus, is to plot several indicies over time, for various locations, and see if they either match or disagree.
Someone finally did that, plotting the rolling average of new cases per million residents for five widely-separated states--each of which had much different lockdown rules, reopening dates, mask requirements and so on. Results, below, are...interesting.
Notice that the new-case rate per million for all the states stays flat until June 14th, which is when the mass protests started. Then the new cases rose sharply, before peaking around the same time, then starting to fall again.
What does this tell people who know math?
Clearly the slope of all the lines match quite well, but then around mid-June the slope increases remarkably. That is, starting mid-June lots more people started being infected per week.
One possibile explanation, of course, is that the virus mutated into a more infectious form. We have no evidence of that, but it's possible. But another possibility is that the infectivity of the virus didn't change, but people began to transmit it to others more effectively.
One possible explanation for that would be...the mass protests, often involving thousands of people. One protest in New York City drew over 100,000 people.
Contact tracing could have shed light on this, except in NYC contact tracers were specifically ordered NOT to ask respondents if they'd been to a protest. Cuz, Science!
Actually that's not science, but "anti-science." It's the politicization of science, ordering that certain questions not be asked, that certain lines of inquiry are off-limits. Now why would a mayor, for example, want to do that?
Wait, citizen: You aren't allowed to ask that. Cuz "Da science is settled!!"
Someone finally did that, plotting the rolling average of new cases per million residents for five widely-separated states--each of which had much different lockdown rules, reopening dates, mask requirements and so on. Results, below, are...interesting.
Notice that the new-case rate per million for all the states stays flat until June 14th, which is when the mass protests started. Then the new cases rose sharply, before peaking around the same time, then starting to fall again.
What does this tell people who know math?
Clearly the slope of all the lines match quite well, but then around mid-June the slope increases remarkably. That is, starting mid-June lots more people started being infected per week.
One possibile explanation, of course, is that the virus mutated into a more infectious form. We have no evidence of that, but it's possible. But another possibility is that the infectivity of the virus didn't change, but people began to transmit it to others more effectively.
One possible explanation for that would be...the mass protests, often involving thousands of people. One protest in New York City drew over 100,000 people.
Contact tracing could have shed light on this, except in NYC contact tracers were specifically ordered NOT to ask respondents if they'd been to a protest. Cuz, Science!
Actually that's not science, but "anti-science." It's the politicization of science, ordering that certain questions not be asked, that certain lines of inquiry are off-limits. Now why would a mayor, for example, want to do that?
Wait, citizen: You aren't allowed to ask that. Cuz "Da science is settled!!"
posted by SF at
1:21 AM
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