Covid-19 in the capitals — A comparison

Over the past year the way Covid-19 has been reported has shown some impressive efforts from some individual actors, but has matured much slower than I expected. In Sweden where I am located, mainstream reporting has not focused on the most telling numbers in my opinion. For much of 2020 the daily reporting has mentioned how many have tested positive today, how many had died today, and what the total number of cases were. Cases or deaths per capita however is still not a commonly used metric. As many know, cases are related to how many tests are conducted and does not provide much of “dry land” to stand on. Death statistics is a less debatable metric, even though the way to report this differs between some countries: Some do not include elderly homes, or look differently on wether the person died due to covid or only with covid without it being the main cause.

What I would recommend and like to see more of:

Reported ratio of covid deaths per comparable region
Below I compare a set of major cities, since I argue that those areas are more comparable than the entire area of a country. This is due to population density, level of international travel, population mix and opportunities to socialize. As an example, Sweden has a population density of just 25.4 people/km2 overall, but if you look at the Stockholm capital region it is 5160 people/km2, which is comparable to London, Berlin or Tokyo.

Selected major cities for comparison • Snapshot Feb 27th 2021

Sources and data used

Use percentages when reporting vaccination progress
There is no major value in reporting actual numbers of people getting vaccinated if you want to focus on progress.

• Report % of the population or subgroup vaccinated, not the number of people vaccinated.
• Report % growth change in vaccination speed for a time period — day/week/month to show if the operations are moving in the right direction. Are we literally moving the needle?

A plea to journalists
Please be very wary when you hear actual numbers in the reports and press conferences. For most situations you should be given in percentages, and changes in the form of percentages.

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Top photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich from Pexels