Other good sites to follow SARS epidemic

April 21, 2003

I found today two more sites to follow the SARS epidemic. At squeak.org there is a plot in semilog scale which clearly shows to me that the growth is not exponential so far. It has three separate graphs for cases worldwide, cases reported by the WHO and cases in the US. A linear plot by Charles Platt is in his site, it is similar to Paul Kedrosky’s plot that I have been using. Paul Kedrosky has added a plot with doubling periods attempting to determine whether the growth is or not exponential. Kedrosky’s plots have the advantage that they update automatically when the WHO site is updated. While the number of deaths is clearly accelerating, the number of cases is only growing linearly. Kedrosky also links to a plot of the 1918 flu epidemic showing what the numbers of deaths was like in that case. It is actually quite starnge that the evolution is still linear, there is obviously something about the way it is transmitted that needs to be understood.

This entry was posted on April 21, 2003 at 7:16 pm and is filed under Digressions.

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