Re: numbers

Posted by Tom Johnson on Nov 02, 2020; 7:49pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/numbers-tp7599310p7599332.html

Nick, et al. -

Here's what I sent to a friend at the New Mexican in August:

Henry:

I know, I know.  I'm a bit of a crank, but...

The online edition of the New Mexican has many data graphics that help readers put the virus in context:  https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/virus/  

Yet what we see in print (p. A-4 today), with one exception,  totally fails to supply any context for the data.  Yes, the "Daily cases reported in New Mexico" chart supplies the necessary context of change over time.  But using space and ink to print "Positive Cases By County" or "Virus Tracker" are, essentially, meaningless numbers without any display of statistical normalization, i.e. cases per thousand, etc.  And perhaps most misleading is the ZIP code map of cases by ZIP?  

There are ~350 ZIP codes in New Mexico.  They range in population from about 80,000 to fewer than 10.  In our local case, ZIP 87505 has about 25,000 people while 87505 has twice as many.  To simply see a "daily" number with an arrow tells us nothing about the rates per TK residents or the change over time in any of those ZIPs.

So, I fully appreciate the shortage of staff and newshole, but (a) isn't there some way to present the data in a more meaningful way in the print edition and, (b) why not at least direct readers of the ink-on-paper edition to the helpful online data at the link above?

Adelante,

Tom

Virus-free. www.avast.com

On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 12:27 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Thanks, Glen, I think the relevant data line was POP100, although I don't know why "100".  In a  sane world, that would be the population in hundreds, but that would give our zip code a population of 4.5 million, which seems a bit  heavy.  In any case, for those of  you following case increments by zip code, here are some denominators as of 2010, as well as the most recent per day 7 day increments. .  The second two columns are deviation are expectation and deviation.  No surprises there, except that there seems to be a bit of a run of cases out by the golf course.  507 has a third more cases than it should have, which demonstrates once again that it's better for your health to be rich than poor.  Caveat emptor: these calculations were done literally on the back of an envelope by an 82 year old guy with poor eyesight and C's in math. 

 

501 - 15,147  - 13% - 02.3c - 4  -

505 - 31,013  - 25% - 06.0   - 8  -

506 - 12, 580 - 09% - 05.5   - 3 +

507 - 45, 890 - 38% - 18.0   - 12 ++

508 - 18, 183 - 15% - 01.5  -  5 -

 

Nick

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Monday, November 2, 2020 12:08 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] numbers

 

And if you don't want to download a huge file, you can use the census web app:

 

E.g. for my zip code (98502):

 

https://tigerweb.geo.census.gov/arcgis/rest/services/TIGERweb/PUMA_TAD_TAZ_UGA_ZCTA/MapServer/7/query?where=ZCTA5%3D%2798502%27&text=&objectIds=&time=&geometry=&geometryType=esriGeometryEnvelope&inSR=&spatialRel=esriSpatialRelIntersects&relationParam=&outFields=*&returnGeometry=false&returnTrueCurves=false&maxAllowableOffset=&geometryPrecision=&outSR=&returnIdsOnly=false&returnCountOnly=false&orderByFields=&groupByFieldsForStatistics=&outStatistics=&returnZ=false&returnM=false&gdbVersion=&returnDistinctValues=false&resultOffset=&resultRecordCount=&queryByDistance=&returnExtentsOnly=false&datumTransformation=&parameterValues=&rangeValues=&f=html

 

I'd say this is an excellent example of government transparency.

 

On 11/2/20 9:08 AM, Barry MacKichan wrote:

> One of the first search hits is

> https://www.kaggle.com/census/us-population-by-zip-code

> <https://www.kaggle.com/census/us-population-by-zip-code>

> —Barry

>

> On 2 Nov 2020, at 11:59, [hidden email] wrote:

>

>     Is it possible to get population by zipcode?  It seems like it’s

> proprietary info.

>

>      

>

>     How’s that for government transparency!

 

--

↙↙↙ uǝlƃ

 

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