Trying to make Sense of the Covid-19 Pandemic: Global Perspective (for discussion purposes)

April 11, 2020.  Scientists and medical doctors are trying to make sense of the covid-19 pandemic and those of us who enjoy data analysis are trying to understand what is happening by assessing the data as they are reported by various organizations.  I’ve been relying primarily on worldometers.info, Johns Hopkins University, WHO, and ourworldindata.org.

I did an analysis using data based on the various continents and examined a number of factors that may be affecting the incidence and mortality rate of this disease. The factors I examined include population density, demographics, air pollution, smoking, tourism, air travel, health care expenditures (both public and out-of-pocket), per-capita income, electricity use, wireless networks, internet access, cellular subscriptions, media censorship and internet surveillance.  This is a cursory assessment as we are still in the middle of this pandemic and while some countries are recovering, the cases and deaths in other countries are still increasing.  Also, data accuracy is difficult to asses and, in some cases, is questionable.

You can view my assessment in this pdf.  It consists of 18 pages and is approximately 6 MB.

I hope this helps to further the discussion and better understand what is happening … as it happens.