3 ms·

That's not really the point of the article. They've gone from 15k new COVID cases a day in early March to 300k in mid April. No other country has seen a 20x ri

That's not really the point of the article. They've gone from 15k new COVID cases a day in early March to 300k in mid April. No other country has seen a 20x rise in cases during that time.

tzs 5y ago
The per capita numbers had a 20x rise over the interval, too, so the per capita numbers are just as good as the totals for conveying that point, and they are better for comparing to other countries. Hence, articles like this one should use per capita numbers.
- masklinn 5y ago
  > so the per capita numbers are just as good as the totals for conveying that point, and they are better for comparing to other countries. No they're not, because India is in the middle of a case explosion right now. That's a completely different situation than a country with awful per-capita numbers but a low-slope linear growth (like france). That's not saying france has handled this well (they have not, at all), but next week odds are France will still be seeing 40k cases / day, while India could be closing in on a million.
  - lippel82 5y ago
    But you can see that explosive growth equally well in the per capita numbers. The total number is just the per capita rate multiplied by a different number in every country, so there are very few occasions where it is useful to choose it over the per capita rate.
- superfrank 5y ago
  I'm not sure I agree. The title indirectly makes a comparison to other countries, so I agree with you that per capita might be better for that, but the actual article isn't really about how India is doing compared to other countries. The article really talks about how India is doing in comparison to how it was doing a few months ago and then paints a picture of how dire the situation currently is. I think the raw numbers actually do a better point of getting both those points across.

3 ms·

That's not really the point of the article. They've gone from 15k new COVID cases a day in early March to 300k in mid April. No other country has seen a 20x ri

by superfrank 5y ago

That's not really the point of the article. They've gone from 15k new COVID cases a day in early March to 300k in mid April. No other country has seen a 20x rise in cases during that time.

tzs 5y ago
The per capita numbers had a 20x rise over the interval, too, so the per capita numbers are just as good as the totals for conveying that point, and they are better for comparing to other countries. Hence, articles like this one should use per capita numbers.
- masklinn 5y ago
  > so the per capita numbers are just as good as the totals for conveying that point, and they are better for comparing to other countries. No they're not, because India is in the middle of a case explosion right now. That's a completely different situation than a country with awful per-capita numbers but a low-slope linear growth (like france). That's not saying france has handled this well (they have not, at all), but next week odds are France will still be seeing 40k cases / day, while India could be closing in on a million.
  - lippel82 5y ago
    But you can see that explosive growth equally well in the per capita numbers. The total number is just the per capita rate multiplied by a different number in every country, so there are very few occasions where it is useful to choose it over the per capita rate.
- superfrank 5y ago
  I'm not sure I agree. The title indirectly makes a comparison to other countries, so I agree with you that per capita might be better for that, but the actual article isn't really about how India is doing compared to other countries. The article really talks about how India is doing in comparison to how it was doing a few months ago and then paints a picture of how dire the situation currently is. I think the raw numbers actually do a better point of getting both those points across.