Some More Perspective

Not to downplay the seriousness of the Canadian COVID-19 situation,but if we look around the world, many, many countries are in more serious situations than we are.

Previously I showed a chart of per capita cases; cases per 100,000 of population.

[As always, click the graphs to zoom in.]

Canada is fairly far down the list. Although things change quickly.

So I'm here adding an additional view.  If number of cases shows the breadth or depth of the contagion, deaths would show the seriousness of it.

So here are a couple of graphs showing "Cases per million population" on the vertical axis and "Deaths per million population" on the horizontal axis.

As suspected, poor old Italy & Spain are in the upper right hand corner; high cases, high mortality rate.

Little San Marino, a tiny little enclave within - you guessed it -Italy, is the worst in the world, off the chart. So is tiny Iceland (upper left); a lot of cases, not so many deaths....so far.

For all we hear of the US and China, they are relative pikers in all this.  Way down in the lower left corner.

Where is the Great White North?

Canada is also tucked way down the in the lower left corner.

Let's drill down into that corner.  I guess you could call that the good corner,,,,,at least for now.

Even when you drill right down into the "good corner" we are in pretty good shape.  By the way, I guess I should end every sentence with.....so far.

Is the rest of the world freaking out as much as we are?

I don't know.  But we are certainly not alone in all this.

So on to today's stats.  Well, yesterday', really.

It looks like the rate of increase of cases has slowed, just a little.

That's good news, but two factors tell me this is just temporary;

1. In Ontario, at least, there is a backlog of over 10,000 tests waiting for results.  If 3% come back positive (about the going rate of positive test results) that is another 300 alone in Ontario.
2. Again, in Ontario at least, they are going to double the number of tests within a week, from ~2,500/day to 5,000.  That will certainly increase the number of positive cases.  The good news is, getting a better handle on who is infected can only help.

Okay, so much for doom and gloom, on to today's joke.

There is no joke.  That's the joke!


[Ed. Note: You seem to have a lot of time on your hands.  You think you'd be able to come up with one damn joke!]