This is your final assignment of the school year. Yaaaaaayyyyyyy! Today I'll have you look at just a couple more COVID graphs, and then you have a hopefully easy homework assignment.
We've looked at the Utah graph of COVID cases for the last two days. On Tuesday (May 5), Scott posted a new graph with a new trend line. Check it out:
Scott fondly refers to this one as the "McDonald's Curve" because of that double peak shape. He first posted it as somewhat of a joke because no other COVID case graphs seem to match this, but the numbers have indeed followed that second (yellow) peak throughout this week. Crazy! (Part of this may be attributed to a change in testing numbers; starting on April 14, Utah started testing way higher numbers of people each day. More people tested means more cases discovered, but the overall percentage of positive cases has actually decreased since testing ramped up.)
I show you this graph because some of you were interested to see it. Some of you also asked for the USA graph, so I'll share that one with you here:
Do you notice how after the peak of cases in the USA arrived, cases haven't really decreased as Scott predicted? Rather, they've stayed kind of high and fairly steady. He might need to revise this line as well. Do you think it will look like the double peak in Utah?
There is another country Scott has watched and graphed whose peak seemed rather stretched out like this (quite a contrast from the Italy graph we looked at last time). That country is Sweden. Sweden from the beginning of COVID chose not to close down their schools, stores, and economy. Instead, they decided to work toward building "herd immunity" in their population by allowing most people to be out and about with caution. It's been a somewhat polarizing news story over time.
Sweden and Norway are neighboring countries who have handled COVID differently: Norway shut down and Sweden did not. You can see that difference in the general shapes of their two graphs (no smooth curve for you here, but hopefully you can tell what it might look like). It seems after this week like Sweden's cases have maybe finally started to decrease. Their death rate has been somewhat high (particularly among older adults), but their hospitals have not been overwhelmed and life has mostly continued as normal during these last two months of crazy in the rest of the world.
What I find interesting is that the USA and Utah graphs are starting to look more like Sweden's graph than Norway's and Italy's graphs. What does this mean?? It doesn't make sense given that both places have had higher levels of "locked down" than Sweden ever did. But I know that Utah's hospitals have been far from overwhelmed and our death rate is abnormally low (I'm not sure about the USA metrics on those two questions). It makes me wonder: have Utahns all secretly been getting together just enough to replicate the herd immunity model of Sweden while still staying apart just enough to keep the curve from overwhelming the system?
I'm curious what questions this raises for you and what you think might be the answers to those questions. For your final assignment:
1) Ask a couple questions about what you've read here and then take a stab at answering them! No right or wrong questions or answers here. I'm truly baffled by the graphs I'm seeing lately, and I'd love to hear what you think.
2) Unrelated to this COVID math project: Find some way to memorialize these strange months where the world shut down. It can be something you've already started working on, or you can totally double up if you have a similar project in a different class. To earn the points for this part of the assignment, tell me about what you did or what your plan is and then GO DO IT! :)
Your math notes and test scores won't matter as much as this assignment will in 20 years. If you have some spare time, make it something that you'll be proud to look back on and hang on to (either in physical or digital form). History will be glad you kept some record.
You should know that I'm doing this assignment as well! I'm blogging for 100 days straight on my college blog (which I basically haven't touched since college, haha) about whatever topic seems relevant for that day. Sometimes it's COVID-related and sometimes it's a complaint about allergies or pictures of my toddler. But it's quarantine life, memorialized.
Ideas if you need them: Backwrite a few journal entries from days where the news was important. Create a Google doc of news "clippings" as things open back up by copying and pasting. Take a selfie for each week of quarantine and compile them in one place. Write a story or a song or a series of haiku poetry about what it feels like to be stuck at home. Video the empty streets and stores (or busy streets and stores as they open up) with some commentary behind the camera to explain what's unique about this time. Or come up with your own project! Anything goes.
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