7 thoughts on “Some useful interactive maps”

  1. I’d expect the number of cases in an area to be proportional to the number of people x the population density for the area (as a factor in the interaction rate). For the English regions, their numbers of C-19 cases, populations (in millions) and areas (in sq km) are as follows (apologies for formatting):

    North East 6318 2.66 8592
    London 22767 8.9 1572
    East of England 8654 6.2 19120
    North West 15682 7.29 14165
    South West 5411 5.56 23829
    Yorkshire 7928 5.48 15420
    West Midlands 10861 5.9 13000
    East Midlands 5802 4.8 15627
    South East 14412 9.13 19095

    If you exclude London (more on this in a moment) and for the remaining 8 regions, fit the number of CV cases vs (Population^2/Area) to a straight line, you’ll find that your predictions for 6 of the 8 regions are quite close to the actual values [(predicted – actual)/actual]:

    North East -45%
    East of England -2%
    North West 1%
    South West 1%
    Yorkshire 4%
    West Midlands 4%
    East Midlands 8%
    South East 28%

    If you use the same straight line fit to predict London’s cases, you’ll find you overestimate by 836% – the same “model” which does well in most of the regions (although fails in NE and SE), “predicts” ~213,000 cases in London.

    The obvious comment is that within some range of population density, interactions are well approximated by the above. But at very high population densities it’s a very poor approximation: at high population densities people “interact” far less than at more “normal” densities.

  2. A brief follow-up to say that the “model’s” poor predictions in the NE, SE and particularly London support some obvious stereotypes: people are more friendly than average in the NE, more stand-offish in the SE and positively glacial in London.

  3. A bit off tangent I know, but given the confused messages around Scandinavia (and Sweden in particular), would anyone with more expertise than me care do do some graphs to provide a clearer picture?

  4. Is it population density or is it super large hospitals and industrial scale care homes creating concentration risk? If so building enormous field hospitals might not be the best approach?

  5. @Tony Prince

    Not Sweden, but similar:

    South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on Beating Coronavirus Without Lockdown:
    “I’ve got some that are pretty sparse with not many people and then I’ve got some that are big cities as well. So I wanted to leave some flexibility there for local folks to make decisions but also recognizing that when it comes down to it that these guys had to take on the personal responsibility that is necessary to really go after this virus”
    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/22/exclusive-south-dakota-gov-kristi-noem-on-beating-coronavirus-without-lockdown-were-much-better-on-offense/

    “these guys had to take on the personal responsibility” Wow, a politician who treats voters as Adults

    Contrast with

    Wretched Whitmer Extends Michigan’s Stay-at-Home Order to May 15
    https://www.breitbart.com/health/2020/04/24/gretchen-whitmer-extends-michigans-stay-at-home-order-to-may-15/

    Amazing how similar their appearance is, could be sisters/twins – but one looks kind & happy

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