09Feb / 2023

Inferring the scale of China’s Covid spike through obituaries

China reported 80,000 Covid deaths since lifting restrictions in early December 2022. But researchers believe the count is much higher, because the figure only includes hospital deaths and the country does not require Covid testing as strictly as before. So, for The New York Times, Pablo Robles, Vivian Wang, and Joy Dong evaluated the change in scale of scholars’ obituaries, which appears to correlate with China’s restriction timeline.

Tags: China, coronavirus, deaths, illustration, New York Times

Permalink

25Feb / 2021

Scale of the pandemic compared to the past

While we’re on the topic of scale, The New York Times plotted weekly deaths below and above normal since 2015. Check out that Covid-19 pandemic mountain.

NYT has been updating this chart, but I hadn’t looked at it in a while. Just, wow.

Tags: coronavirus, deaths, New York Times

Permalink

25Feb / 2021

500,000 lives lost, an individual scale

The United States passed the half million mark for confirmed Covid-19 deaths. It’s difficult to imagine 500,000 of anything, let alone deaths in a year, so Reuters used a modified beeswarm chart to show the timeline of events and the individual deaths. Each dot represents a death, and a scaled down version of the chart appears in the top left corner to show where you are in the timeline.

It’s not possible to reflect the true meaning of such a scale through a screen, but the mini-obituaries on the left-hand side help. I had to pause a few times.

Tags: coronavirus, deaths, Reuters, scale

Permalink

01Dec / 2020

Mapping 250,000 people

As we’ve talked about before, it can be hard to really understand the scale of big numbers. So when we hear that over 250,000 people died because of the coronavirus, it can be hard to conceptualize that number in our head. Lauren Tierney and Tim Meko for The Washington Post provide a point of comparison by highlighting counties that have have populations under 250,000.

Whole counties, or whole clusters of counties, that would be completely wiped out.

It’s a lot.

Tags: coronavirus, deaths, scale, Washington Post

Permalink

24May / 2020

An Incalculable Loss

The New York Times used their full front page to list 1,000 names of the 100,000 who died due to the virus. There is an online version, which is equally moving.

Tags: coronavirus, deaths, New York Times

Permalink

18Dec / 2019

Deaths from child abuse, a starting dataset

By way of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, ProPublica and The Boston Globe requested records from each state. They compiled the many documents into a single dataset:

In each record, CAPTA requires states to list the age and gender of the child, and information about a household’s prior contact with welfare services. The information is supposed to help government agencies prevent child abuse, neglect and death, but reporting across states is so inconsistent that comparisons and trends are impossible to identify. ProPublica is releasing the data we’ve collected as a minimum count of child fatality records in the United States. Researchers and journalists can download the full records with summaries at the ProPublica Data Store.

Unfortunately, not all state agencies are compliant, but it’s a start.

Also, Jessica Huseman of ProPublica discussed some of the emotional challenges of working with such sensitive data.

Tags: Boston Globe, children, deaths, ProPublica

Permalink

10Apr / 2019

All of the deaths in Game of Thrones

A few years back, The Washington Post illustrated every death in Game of Thrones. With the new season on the way, the death count is up and the graphics updated.

Tags: deaths, Game of Thrones, Washington Post

Permalink

02Jun / 2015

Counting people killed by police

The US government doesn't keep a complete record of fatal shootings by police, but with recent events, it's become increasingly obvious why such data is important. So instead of waiting, the Guardian built their own database.

The database will combine Guardian reporting with verified crowdsourced information to build a more comprehensive record of such fatalities. The Counted is the most thorough public accounting for deadly use of force in the US, but it will operate as an imperfect work in progress — and will be updated by Guardian reporters and interactive journalists as frequently and as promptly as possible.

In May 2015 alone, the data counts 80 people.

Search and filter to areas of interest. Or, download the data.

Tags: deaths, Guardian, police

Permalink

Reader

Tag Archives: deaths

Inferring the scale of China’s Covid spike through obituaries

Scale of the pandemic compared to the past

500,000 lives lost, an individual scale

Mapping 250,000 people

An Incalculable Loss

Deaths from child abuse, a starting dataset

All of the deaths in Game of Thrones

Counting people killed by police

Meta