I have been following the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy for a while now. I am trying to understand how Montreal and Quebec are faring is comparison. A thread. 1/n
@PopCentreMcGill @ihsp_mcgill @ISID_McGill @MaxBellSchool @McGilluMedia
@PopCentreMcGill @ihsp_mcgill @ISID_McGill @MaxBellSchool @McGilluMedia
To make the comparison tighter, let’s focus on Montreal vs. Milan and Quebec vs. Lombardy region. Basic demographics reported below. Keep in mind that there are of course a zillion of other observed and unobserved differences between the two. 2/n 
Four points to make. Consider first the number of cases in Montreal vs. Milan. Both lines start on the day in which the two cities had similar numbers — around 250. Montreal appears to be doing much worse than Milan. But… 3/n
Second, Quebec vs. Lombardy. Lines start on the day in which the two regions had similar number of cases — around 1,300. Quebec seems to be doing better than Lombardy. 4/n
Third, most importantly, Quebec is testing *much* more than Lombardy. It was already on the day in which the two regions had similar number of cases. The difference keeps increasing. 5/n
Finally, Quebec closed schools much earlier along the curve. Even more so for closure of non-essential services, which Quebec did with only 628 cases as opposed to Lombardy which did so when cases reached 27,000 (!). 6/n
Hang in there, les amis. #andratuttobene n/n
