Comments on: COVID-19 Daily Update: 4/22/20

By: Tod Newman

Tod Newman — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 23:25:14 +0000

In reply to Kelly. I like it, Kelly. I'd be interested in tracking this, London/Paris both have been pretty hard hit. Wonder if the cities in Germany that have the largest amount of public transportation users have been hit harder too? Yes, this is a complex system... exactly my kind of problem. :)

By: Kelly

Kelly — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 19:51:10 +0000

I’d also be interested in looking at the population % using public transportation. I would guess that NYC May be the highest in the nation? It is curious tho. Especially as they find the first cases of community spread far earlier than expected in NorCal (so why did SF or other cities see much of a blip?). Definitely feels like an X factor or two is at work.

By: Britton Davis

Britton Davis — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 18:52:10 +0000

The latitude effect and the focus on NYC and the northeast cluster seem very peculiar. A few thoughts–First, does excluding NY or NY, NJ, and MA normalize the lattitude effect? It looks like all three are in the 40-45 band–and actually in a narrow range of longitudes as well. Second, this may not be something that can be checked, but confounding factors such as air pollution, temperature/humidity conditions, or even a particularly virulent strain of COVID could be in play since it seems like the bulk of deaths are packed into that corner of the NE US.