Thread by @GidMK

So, everyone has been making graphs of the number of cases of #COVID19 and #coronavirus

You know, they look a little like this

Exponential curve, looks terrifying no matter what!

What if we presented this a bit differently?

One thing that people aren't really putting out there is the RATE of increase

Until we start seeing serious decreases, the number of new cases will always be big

However, if the RATE is increasing, it is a good sign

For example, going from 1000 to 1100 is roughly a 10% increase

Going from 5000 to 5200 is a bigger numerical increase, but not even a 5% increase overall

Big difference!

So, what do these rates look like?

Well, above is the number of cases in Australia by state. Here is the RATE of increase in the total number over the same time period with a red line at 10%

South Korea is an illuminating example

The rate massively increased at the start, then dropped to almost 0 over the next few weeks

Italy is also interesting. Big spike at the start, but hasn't dropped below 10% even though it's been going on for a while now

Using these graphs, it's possible to see whether a country is currently controlling the epidemic much more easily than using simple graphs of cases

SK has almost no growth day by day

Italy is still going up exponentially

Australia is early, but not doing great

Obviously, these are not predictions and can't tell us much if anything about the future

However, much more useful than saying "today was the biggest increase in cases since the start of the epidemic!"

Incidentally, this should read *decreasing* not increasing. Bad typo to put down!