Mridul K. Thomas
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ecology - phytoplankton - functional traits

05.04.2020

2/1/2021

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In an earlier post, I mentioned that COVID deaths have been severely underreported in Europe. Comparing recent deaths in Italy with those in the same months in previous years suggests that the true number killed is about double the reported number. This is because the conditions required to be recorded as a COVID death are stringent; if you die at home, it does not count as being caused by the coronavirus. This data bias is not specific to Italy, and it matters a lot. The official numbers are used for calibrating models that predict deaths and epidemic progression in other countries. If we calibrate models based on death rates that are too low, we risk underestimating the challenge other countries face in the coming weeks and months.

Note that this is just one of many data biases, and some might be in the direction of overestimation. But underestimation is the major threat.

More at https://public.tableau.com/profile/isaia.invernizzi...
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    Why I do this

    I am not an expert on Covid, viruses, or vaccines, but I am a scientist with relevant training. I believe we have a responsibility to clearly communicate science to the public, especially in emergencies. So I started to write summaries of Covid developments on facebook in March 2020 to help friends and family understand the situation as it unfolded. This is an archive of those posts (created much later).

    I also track the spread of alarming Covid variants at http://covidvarianttracking.com/ and map the consequences of faster variant spreading at https://tabsoft.co/2YwHCmZ.

    Please do let me know if you find errors in the most recent posts. 

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