It’s the holiday season in much of the world, and this year that means not just early sunsets and school breaks but also supply chain woes. Everything, from puzzles and hot sauce to peppermint candy canes, is in short supply this month, as the global economy struggles to get items from point A to point B.
Continue reading “Candy cane shortages and the importance of variation”Month: December 2021
What is the use of lots of data when we don’t know what they mean?
There are lots of sources for data on Covid-19. Many of them just take data from government or hospital sources, and let you compare them however you want to. Others are a little more careful. Financial Times data journalists outline some of the problems:
Continue reading “What is the use of lots of data when we don’t know what they mean?”Comparing the spread of coronavirus in different countries is difficult using the data being released by governments. Confirmed case counts depend heavily on the extent of countries’ very different testing regimes, so higher totals may simply reflect more testing.
Deaths are somewhat more reliable, but remain problematic because countries have different rules for what deaths to include in their official numbers.