Since the Corona / COVID 19 outbreak last December 2019 that started in Wuhan, China a lot has been written about the phenomenon and was confirmed as pandemic by World Health Organization on the 11th of March 2020. According to Johns Hopkins University 184 countries have.been affected by the virus and have registered cases of COVID 19.  

Based on the large amount of data and information (news, blogs, socials or official government documents) that citizens are confronted with - I sometimes found it difficult to distinguish facts from and opinions. Hence, I found myself analysing the Corona outbreak on a daily basis. Where I would try to fact-check statements of experts or politicians that I heard the day before on popular late night talk shows in the Netherlands. Like Jinek or Op1. All in order to try and make sense of the virus and the outbreak. 

From a statistical data science perspective pandemics are interesting subjects to study, as they cover a lot of key statistical concepts that we use in data science. Eg distribution theories, significance levels etc. My objective in this series of posts is to try and balance a simplification of what is going while also keeping it understandable for audiences that are less data mature. Implying that is preferable to keep research questions small and by answering the individual questions per post - we are gradually building knowledge about the virus and it's outbreak and at the same time are aiming to help readers become more data-literate.  

For this series of posts I will be zooming in on the following research questions / topics: 

How did the pandemic spread across China over time?

How do mortality rates look during the first fourteen days in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands

Are mortality rates different across Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain?

How does the infection rate look across states in The Netherlands

Concluding remarks - not an epidemiologists

Please note that I am not an epidemiologists and thus wary of relating the outcomes of my endevours to the current situation. My aim is to create a better understanding about the visrus and it's outbreak and hopefully help people (and myself) to place presented information in a more statistical perspective. 

Hope you enjoy reading! 

All the best,

Ditty