Another graphics puzzle......what's wrong?

Thanks to Joe Nadeau for this contribution!
New COVID-19 data from the Georgia Department of Health suggesting a promising trend that supports opening the State. 

But something's wrong, separate from the ugliness of bar graphs for data like these - maybe a line plot for each county would be better, assuming there are no games with the graphics....... 

What do you find that is unusual.....?

It might be just an interesting curiosity if the public health policy implications were not so serious.

Comments

  1. Jess DKMay 21, 2020 at 10:10 AM

    Aside from the lack of a y-axis (I assume they are plotting the number of new cases per day), they rearrange the order in which the counties appear, largest to smallest number of new cases, each day. The number of new cases appears to fall of quickly, so I am left in some doubt that that really is what they are plotting...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownMay 21, 2020 at 12:29 PM

      y-axis and unusual ordering of counties to show downward trend. Did you notice anything about the x-axis?

      Delete
    2. UnknownMay 21, 2020 at 6:37 PM

      The dates on the x-axis are out of order.

      Delete
    3. Jess DKMay 22, 2020 at 10:23 AM

      Wow! It's amazing that even when I'm looking for it I have a hard time spotting the errors. I'm not sure which concerns me more, that data are being prepared by folks inept at applying sort functions or by people actively pushing dangerous agendas.

      Delete
    4. UnknownMay 23, 2020 at 7:47 PM

      AND if an accident, then there was no proofing, no checking. If by design - someone wanted the graphic to look this way, then that's a whole other problem.

      And a good lesson about how easy it is to look but not see, or to see only what we want.

      Delete

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