Even though this country may be reporting fewer COVID-19 infections now than the more lax country, the proactive country’s percent of peak may be higher because its initial peak (the denominator) was smaller. Let’s say one of those countries acted much more aggressively to contain its outbreak early on and therefore had a much smaller initial peak. Say there are two countries of equal population size, both likely initially to suffer similar outbreaks. You can use the percent of peak to compare countries because that figure is relative to the scale of each country’s outbreak, but there are some important caveats. That tells us that the country has come a long way from the height of its outbreak, but still has a way to go to fully contain the virus’ spread. The percent of peak number featured throughout this project represents where a country is in comparison to the highest point of its own outbreak.Īs a simple example, if a country was reporting about 100 COVID-19 infections each day, but is now only reporting 25 on average, that country is reporting 25% of its peak number of daily infections. Why do you use “percent of peak” to describe a country’s outbreak? We use a rolling average of the infections and deaths reported over the last 7 days to even out some of that irregular reporting and get us closer to a daily figure. While most countries report new numbers daily, others may only update on weekdays or even less frequently. Some countries change the way they’re reporting to include or exclude a certain category of infections or deaths, which can lead to a significant increase or decrease in their total and what they reported previously. Some countries may exclude certain categories of infections and deaths that others include (for example, probable infections) or have different criteria as to what may be counted as a COVID-19 infection or death. Countries may miss infections and deaths for any number of reasons, such as delays in processing testing data, lag in reporting, lack of testing, etc. The counts are based on the best available information accessible to Reuters at any given time. Is this data a complete count of every COVID-19 infection and death in all countries? If probable infections and deaths are not reported by a country, we only use confirmed infections and deaths. Total infections and deaths for each country include both confirmed and probable infections and deaths where that data is available. In other cases, we may defer to global health agencies such as the World Health Organisation or the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control for missing historical data when the primary source does not make historical data available. In cases where the national count lags behind state figures, we may use those local figures to arrive at the total. We also occasionally get information from news conferences, press releases and verified tweets and social media posts by government officials. The figures largely come from official country, state, county and territory government and public health department websites. We also review that data for irregularities and correct it whenever better data becomes available. Reuters collates and checks coronavirus infection and death counts from countries and territories around the world each day.
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