COVID-19 vs. Humans: Who is Winning?

An interesting data visualization by Aatish Bhatia plots the number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases in the past week vs. total confirmed COVID-19 cases, both on a logarithmic scale (which can also be toggled to a linear scale). While there is no time axis, the chart can be animated over time. The visualization is based on publicly available data from Johns Hopkins University which is the same data set that is used for a dashboard that I recently wrote about.

The somewhat unique aspect of plotting new confirmed cases vs. total confirmed cases is that it provides a visual indicator of whether we are continuing to experience exponential growth of COVID-19 cases or if we are starting to win the war against coronavirus. The following video provide an excellent and understandable explanation of the math behind this thinking:

Kudos to Johns Hopkins University not only for hosting their dashboard for public use but also for making their data publicly available so that it can be used for other purposes like this. And of course, kudos to Aatish Bhatia for helping us see the same data in a different light to help us understand if we are winning the war against coronavirus. SPOILER ALERT: currently we are not.