Thank you Steven! Will be forwarding that chart!
(Hi Ransom! Lunch time. Back to yard/garden shortly)
The key piece of data that is missing from all reporting (by design) is the severity of new cases. How sick are they? We know that many new cases are identified through expanded testing, but are asymptomatic or have very low grade symptoms “I thought I had a cold”. That makes a big difference if you’re really looking to make data-driven decisions (which of course most of the gov’t is not, it’s just looking for numbers that justify actions they’ve already taken or want to take).
The number of deaths matters, obviously. But the number of new cases, without quantifying the severity, is pretty much worthless.