> The video shows a plot of "new cases", which might be measuring the rollout of testing
Maybe, but probably not given how consistent the trend is over time, response, and as the disease progresses.
> It is also not showing data per-capita.
Per-capita would be much LESS representative. The virus spreads locally, at a scale far smaller than country borders. The point is to show the progression of an outbreak. If you show per-capita, you would be showing the number of outbreaks per country and minimizing the growth of any individual outbreak. For instance China, with 4x the population of the US, would be moved much farther down the graph than the US. That would only make the data look fuzzier, and convey zero useful information.
In the end it would probably be a very minimal difference given the logarithmic scale.
Maybe, but probably not given how consistent the trend is over time, response, and as the disease progresses.
> It is also not showing data per-capita.
Per-capita would be much LESS representative. The virus spreads locally, at a scale far smaller than country borders. The point is to show the progression of an outbreak. If you show per-capita, you would be showing the number of outbreaks per country and minimizing the growth of any individual outbreak. For instance China, with 4x the population of the US, would be moved much farther down the graph than the US. That would only make the data look fuzzier, and convey zero useful information.
In the end it would probably be a very minimal difference given the logarithmic scale.