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I've noticed a consistent trend in people who like to pretend that all is well on the COVID front plotting graphs in a way which suits their purpose. This is the sort of graph they will show you for hospital admissions. Looks pretty good.
It's understandable they want to demonstrate that cases are low, but if you zoom in, you see a small, but appreciable rise in admissions over the last couple of weeks.
Here's the same trick but for patients curently in hospital. Looks like a rosy picture on this graph...
But you can start to see the increase in patient numbers as admissions have overtaken discharges over the last week or so as you zoom in.
I'm not pointing this out to be overly fatalistic. And I'm not suggesting this small rise in admissions and patients in hospital recently is anywhere near where we were in April or that these trends will necessarily continue, but it's important to see there has been a change...
and that you can't always see this if you look at the data through too coarse a lense.
It's great that hospital admissions are low compared to where they were in April, but to understand where we're going we need to look at the slope and you just can't get a good feel for it...
It's great that hospital admissions are low compared to where they were in April, but to understand where we're going we need to look at the slope and you just can't get a good feel for it...
... if you're too zoomed out.
In terms of understanding what's happening now it is important to zoom in on the tail.
Of course the zoomed-out bigger picture is important for putting these rises in context.
In terms of understanding what's happening now it is important to zoom in on the tail.
Of course the zoomed-out bigger picture is important for putting these rises in context.
