Aniseed Balls

When it comes to preventing the spread of coronavirus, which of the following pairs do you think are most likely to ignore the bio-security advice of the World Health Organization and the government, to fail to admit to themselves that they have the symptoms of the virus and to fail to seek proper timely medical assistance? Would it be those who think we should trust the science (even if patchy), or those who think giving money to Buddhist monks will bring them good fortune? Would it be believers in the germ theory of disease, or believers in the Gaia theory of disease? Those putting trust in physical barriers, or those putting trust in the power of prayer? Those who think that social distancing will protect them, or those who think God will protect them? Those who think a vaccine would help, or those who think reiki will help? Masters students in Respiratory Care, or Masters students in Wellness Training? I claim that in each case the first group will be more prudent than the seco...

The government have been keen to make international COVID-19 comparisons when favourable, and to claim that comparisons are dubious when they are unfavourable. At the same time, most of the charts shown in the media are next to useless. So here is a chart type you won't have seen. It shows new deaths against total deaths for different countries. Things to note: Most charts you will have seen have time on the horizontal access. Here we have total deaths. This shows the underlying relationship much better, and eliminates the difference in epidemic start dates between countries. Total deaths only ever increase, so time progresses from left to right for each country, but not in a linear fashion. The new deaths are smoothed out by averaging over the previous seven days. This eliminates weekly cycles and some anomalies of data collection. Both axes have logarithmic scales. The linear section of each county's data represents the exponential part of the growth in the...