Re: [Phys-L] void problem for 10 days + entertainment response

["Don" <dgpolvani@gmail.com>]

I live in Anne Arundel County, MD and so was interested in this exchange.  I obtained similar data to Brian Whatcott for all 24 Maryland counties (U.S. Census population data estimated to 2018 and Maryland Health Dept. Covid-19 case data as of 5/5/20).  Plotting the data as county confirmed cases/100,000 versus county population size clearly shows an upward trend for the larger county population sizes.  Overall correlation coefficient was about 0.7 indicating positive correlation with population size.  R_sq for best fit straight line was only about 0.5 caused in part (I think) by "noisy" data at small population sizes.  For counties with populations over 200,000, upward trend was quite clear (although not necessarily linear as the R_sq shows).  However, for smaller population sizes, the county confirmed cases bounced around quite a bit making a trend with population size difficult to see.

Don Polvani 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phys-l [mailto:phys-l-bounces@mail.phys-l.org] On Behalf Of brian
> whatcott
> Sent: Monday, May 4, 2020 2:00 PM
> To: phys-l@mail.phys-l.org
> Subject: Re: [Phys-L] void problem for 10 days + entertainment response
>
> On 5/4/2020 6:46 AM, Bill Norwood via Phys-l wrote:
> > And, just for entertainment, since no numbers can be substantiated or
> compared: Do a log-log plot of the Maryland county by county confirmed  cases
> vs the county’s population.
> > You will see that the most highly populated counties (and cities) have the
> lowest numbers of confirmed cases per 10,000 population.
> > Issue: Should that be per 100/1000/10,000/100,000 population?
> >
> > Pic of my plot available to individuals.
> >
> > Bill Norwood
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> I set a list of Maryland counties ordered by size (US Census data) against cases
> (Maryland Dept Health).
> The smaller counties trended at 280 cases per hundred thousand county
> population, shown here:
> https://imgur.com/e9zWwVX small Maryland counties and big county
> populations shown here:
> https://imgur.com/RQYurJG large Maryland counties The more populous
> counties trended at 540 cases per hundred thousand county population.
>
> Accordingly, I was unable to confirm your correlation, because I found the
> highest populated counties showed the highest case rates.   Comments?
>
> Brian W
> p.s. My data CAN be substantiated:
> County case data:
> https://coronavirus.maryland.gov/
> County population data:
> https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/01glance/html/pop.html#county
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