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There are good reasons to compare pandemics this way. I think the mutation rate depends on total secondary infections, if you can compare mutation rate between
by ttyprintk 5y ago
There are good reasons to compare pandemics this way. I think the mutation rate depends on total secondary infections, if you can compare mutation rate between events. Cemetery plots are found on land that’s not growing proportional to population. The risk over hospital beds doesn’t change when the population shrinks, it’s a fixed number. Etc.
I’d leave the proportional figures as a footnote. It’s only useful as a scorecard between countries. Only economists make judgments based on changes in proportion.
- Arnt 5y agoThis makes sense. As a kind of sanity check, I thought about the Ebola reporting I've read in the past decades and cannot remember any reporting that used the proportion of population. I do remember Ebola reporting that described outbreak magnitude using absolute numbers of people, though. I'm persuaded.
- ttyprintk 5y agoEbola comes to mind, yeah. Discussing rates is error-prone, I think. The effects that cause a change in absolute numbers are topically different than the effects that cause a difference in proportion.