

Log scales are particularly suited to displaying trends in relative rates of change, like a virus spreading. The vertical axis of our charts are shown using a logarithmic scale, where the same distance on the scale represents multiplying or dividing by the same amount, instead of adding or subtracting the same amount as is the case with a linear scale.

The FT is tracking excess mortality - the difference between deaths from all causes during the pandemic and the historic seasonal average - in the handful of countries and municipalities that publish suitably recent data, and has reported on the specific circumstances in Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Turkey and the UK." Logarithmic or linear scales

Some countries like France and the UK have even changed which deaths they include during the course of the epidemic.įor either measure, we use a seven-day rolling average to adjust for the impact of administrative delays to reporting new data over weekends. The most notable difference between countries’ Covid mortality figures is whether or not they include deaths outside hospitals, particularly in care homes. Confirmed case counts depend heavily on the extent of countries’ very different testing regimes, so higher totals may simply reflect more testing.ĭeaths are somewhat more reliable, but remain problematic because countries have different rules for what deaths to include in their official numbers. Comparing the spread of coronavirus in different countries is difficult using the data being released by governments.
