Yes, Mark, it isn’t clear what will happen long term, but it does appear like one thing that is for sure is that we weren’t able to protect our most vulnerable populations early on. I suspect this is one reason why the death rates have dropped a lot lately. I wonder about the cultural piece too… wish we had better demographic data in Arizona. Our state stinks at strategic data collection. 🙂

T.

I would appreciate your comments on this:

I have been doing my own analysis but I am an amateur.

1. When the data is presented in wide sweeping statements it deceives. I simply note the nursing home statistic. If that tragedy is factored in, the remaining data looks very different.

2. It seems that there is a direct correlation between age and risk, and underlying conditions and risk. The IFR is not static but grows as we get to the 60 and over population and the previously sick population.

3. It also seems there is a correlation between cultural family life (multiple generations together vs nuclear family) and risk. I get that from looking at Zipcodes in Arizona.

What do you think?

Good suggestion, Dan!

Thank you, Sir! I’m always happy to take on particular questions you might have…

Thanks Chris! Agree, there’s no silver bullet for sampling data and using it to understand a particular question. But there are sneaky ways to do this that are self-reinforcing and more honest ways that may increase knowledge… I am tired of seeing the former. 🙂

Understanding the relationships and being able to normalize across are critical when using statistics to analyze any data set. The difficulty in the whole reporting is choosing the right numerator and denominator to normalize against. Once you’ve chosen it, use it all the time every time for consistency.

Keep up the great work!