In “Deciding When to Suspend a Vaccine,” Tim Harford explores why we often misjudge risk by confusing coincidence with causality, and the dilemma regulators face balancing public health with pure science. If you listen to one Podcast about COVID vaccine hesitation, listen to this ~8 min episode of More or Less by the BBC. One reason why More or Less was chosen as our Top Podcast this Spring.
Asides
Small Multiples: Map of Vaccine Barriers
It’s interesting to see how visualizations of the pandemic have evolved over the past year, and the NY Times is often at the forefront. This example uses small multiples, radial graphs and color to compare the barriers to vaccination by geography.
Small Multiples and Shadow Casting
I was browsing an exhibit of Utagawa Hiroshige when I came across these delightful examples of small multiples to teach how various shadow creations are made. I never cease to be amazed by the power and impact of this relatively simple technique for comparison.
POC as a Proportion of US Police Shootings
Apparently there is some disagreement about whether People of Color (POC) suffer disproportionately from Police shootings in the US. At issue is whether to use the total number of deaths, or the more accurate deaths per million measure that reflects differences in population size. The following chart, and the accompanying explanation of how the data was collected, is one of the more clear, objective visualizations of the fact that POC suffer disproportionately:
What Goes Up Must Come Down…Sometime
When will the COVID-19 ball drop? Another great post about the difficult choices being made by those who must communicate the future in highly uncertain times. What do you tell the American public when the best model isn’t enough?