As mentioned in the last article, I have been watching the data across the world and, i particular, the numbers of new cases each day and my sheet expresses these as the number per 1m population. This, I feel, provides a better comparison that mere totals and the total active cases seem most unreliable with totally different methods of calculation in different places.
I do appreciate, of course, that there will also be huge problems in the reliability of some of the data from countries with poor recording or testing facilities or procedures. This will almost certainly mean that where the virus has taken hold in a poor, less well-equipped country then the number of active cases must be significantly higher than the official data shows. or all that, I do feel this is a useful guide, especially as 'active' cases are not available for the UK and some other countries and it is really to see how we're doing in comparison to others that I do this. More in hope than anything else these days, though.
I got a mouthful from some woman in Portugal when I put these on Facebook. She was most offended that I had shown Portugal as red and UK as a nice apple green. Clearly, as she pointed out amongst the huffing and puffing, every country will have lovely safe places where no-one is ill and you can happily visit and hug people and wander around without a mask. I am sure Portugal has many. But unless someone provides me with all the detailed regional data all I can share is the national stuff and, indeed, that is what tends to guide authorities, for better or worse. But, yes, don't make any decisions based on what I publish. It's purely data, made a little more comprehensible.
Depending upon what I am doing with this sheet from time to time it may change to show all the days or may be filtered to show just Europe or just certain areas of the planet.
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