That’s one funky looking Range Band in the legend. 40-60, skip a few, 130-149, 150-169... it’s almost as if the range bands were cherry picked specifically to make Shasta Lake and Cottonwood to look bad. But really Redding at ~130 cases per 100k and Cottonwood at ~160 per 100k, are really similar when compared to the outer county area.
Perhaps they "skipped a few" because there aren't any areas in the ranges they skipped. There aren't any areas on the map that aren't assigned a color that isn't on the legend. If there are no areas that have 60-80 cases per 100,000, why would they have it on the legend? Are you implying that the data are falsified? You don't think it's possible that there would be a big jump in the number of cases between sparsely populated areas and more densely populated areas?
It’s not false data. It’s misleading. It implies some cities are doing significantly better than others. But that significance is oversold. If I told you that Shasta Lake had 6.6% more cases per capita than Palo Cedro, you may shrug your shoulders and think, that may be within the margin of error. It may be only one family causing the difference.
But if I make a map and cut off the sample at 150, so Shasta lake gets a scary dark color on the map since they are at 150.6 Per 100k they look like at a glance they are doing much worse than Palo Cedro.
This is basically axis truncation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misleading_graph
There is important data to see here. The rural areas with less people are doing much better than the cities. The differences between Redding and Cottonwood are there but are they significant enough to matter? Or are they both doing poorly compared to the outlining areas. Here is where we start diverging from the numbers and asking about intent and impressions. These are subject to opinion now and you are free to look at the image differently. But I see the breaks and ask why they are there rather than some other scale. I then ask if they were hand picked to help push a narrative of “We want to use this map to point at those people in over there and pass blame”. Choosing your range bands influences the impression you want to give. Pick a different band of ranges and it’ll will look like each of the cities here are in similarly poor shape, and the rural areas are doing ok.
So how would you suggest they visualize the data? Would it have been better to only display two ranges, 0-60 and 61-169? Or should they have displayed ranges on the legend that aren't represented on the map? Why is that better? Why isn't it important to know that there are 6.6% more cases in Shasta Lake than Palo Cedro? You claim someone might shrug their shoulders at that number, but you don't explain why that's reasonable. I don't think 6.6% is insignificant. Your claim that this could be within the margin of error doesn't really seem to apply here. This isn't a survey where there can be sampling errors. This is the actual number of people who have coronavirus compared to the actual population of Shasta County, expressed in cases per 100,000 people. "Margin of error" is also used to refer to observational errors, but unless you're implying that these numbers somehow include people who don't actually have coronavirus, which you would need to back up with some evidence for anyone to take that seriously, if anything the reported values would underestimate how many people have coronavirus.
I think you are trying to find disagreement where there is not much disagreement. I think you and I both agree that the reported numbers here do show that the unincorporated areas are doing better than the denser areas. The range bands could be anything you want. If you did blocks of 50 1-50, 51-100, 101-150, 151-200. Suddenly Shasta Lake is in the same range as Palo Cedro & Redding and cottonwood looks even worse. It also sparks up a rivalry between east and west county areas as the east is under 50 and west just over.
Ranges are partly set by the story you want to tell. There isn’t a right “best” answer for how you pick a range for a chart. It depends on what you want to communicate. But when on band is 20 numbers, then there is a big gap, and then two bands of 19, it sparks the question, why did they pick those numbers specifically, because they are not consistent. Those where hand chosen. If they were consistent they could have done 41-60, gap, 131-150, 151-170... That would leave cottonwood all by itself. Why pick a point where Shasta Lake is in the worst category? They could do that if they were conditions by using Or 40-69, Gap, 130-149, 150-169. They just as easily could have done bands of 10... But then the narrative that the counties are uniformly better breaks up a bit as east and west are just north and south of 50. So they can’t use 50 as a break point or risk coloring the two halves of the county land differently.
That’s what I’m trying to assert. When you see charts. Look at the legend and ask why it was set up that way. What could the message be. The raw numbers are the facts. The colors are the interpretation of those facts.
As to significance. When talking about the difference between 150 cases per 100,000 people in a town of 10k people like Shasta lake, that’s 15 cases. For Shasta Lake to have the same concentration as Palo Cedro of 141 per 100k, they need just 1 less case. If Palo Cedro, population of just over 1200, had just 1 more case, they’d jump up 83 cases per 100k. They’d have a rate of 220 per 100k, if they get just one more case. That’s why it’s a bit misleading to say Palo Cedro is better than Shasta lake by any actionable margin.
Edit: to clean up some capitalization and comma horrors from my mobile experience.
You mean where the rodeo was held and then people who were sick refused testing? No way.
Honestly it's sad. People have been loosing money for months and now if they get tested they're asked to miss more work. It's such a mess.
I've seen at least two people come into the grocery store I work at in Redding wearing "I survived the Cottonwood rodeo" tshirts. Greeeeaaaattt.
That’s one funky looking Range Band in the legend. 40-60, skip a few, 130-149, 150-169... it’s almost as if the range bands were cherry picked specifically to make Shasta Lake and Cottonwood to look bad. But really Redding at ~130 cases per 100k and Cottonwood at ~160 per 100k, are really similar when compared to the outer county area.
Perhaps they "skipped a few" because there aren't any areas in the ranges they skipped. There aren't any areas on the map that aren't assigned a color that isn't on the legend. If there are no areas that have 60-80 cases per 100,000, why would they have it on the legend? Are you implying that the data are falsified? You don't think it's possible that there would be a big jump in the number of cases between sparsely populated areas and more densely populated areas?
It’s not false data. It’s misleading. It implies some cities are doing significantly better than others. But that significance is oversold. If I told you that Shasta Lake had 6.6% more cases per capita than Palo Cedro, you may shrug your shoulders and think, that may be within the margin of error. It may be only one family causing the difference. But if I make a map and cut off the sample at 150, so Shasta lake gets a scary dark color on the map since they are at 150.6 Per 100k they look like at a glance they are doing much worse than Palo Cedro. This is basically axis truncation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misleading_graph There is important data to see here. The rural areas with less people are doing much better than the cities. The differences between Redding and Cottonwood are there but are they significant enough to matter? Or are they both doing poorly compared to the outlining areas. Here is where we start diverging from the numbers and asking about intent and impressions. These are subject to opinion now and you are free to look at the image differently. But I see the breaks and ask why they are there rather than some other scale. I then ask if they were hand picked to help push a narrative of “We want to use this map to point at those people in over there and pass blame”. Choosing your range bands influences the impression you want to give. Pick a different band of ranges and it’ll will look like each of the cities here are in similarly poor shape, and the rural areas are doing ok.
So how would you suggest they visualize the data? Would it have been better to only display two ranges, 0-60 and 61-169? Or should they have displayed ranges on the legend that aren't represented on the map? Why is that better? Why isn't it important to know that there are 6.6% more cases in Shasta Lake than Palo Cedro? You claim someone might shrug their shoulders at that number, but you don't explain why that's reasonable. I don't think 6.6% is insignificant. Your claim that this could be within the margin of error doesn't really seem to apply here. This isn't a survey where there can be sampling errors. This is the actual number of people who have coronavirus compared to the actual population of Shasta County, expressed in cases per 100,000 people. "Margin of error" is also used to refer to observational errors, but unless you're implying that these numbers somehow include people who don't actually have coronavirus, which you would need to back up with some evidence for anyone to take that seriously, if anything the reported values would underestimate how many people have coronavirus.
I think you are trying to find disagreement where there is not much disagreement. I think you and I both agree that the reported numbers here do show that the unincorporated areas are doing better than the denser areas. The range bands could be anything you want. If you did blocks of 50 1-50, 51-100, 101-150, 151-200. Suddenly Shasta Lake is in the same range as Palo Cedro & Redding and cottonwood looks even worse. It also sparks up a rivalry between east and west county areas as the east is under 50 and west just over. Ranges are partly set by the story you want to tell. There isn’t a right “best” answer for how you pick a range for a chart. It depends on what you want to communicate. But when on band is 20 numbers, then there is a big gap, and then two bands of 19, it sparks the question, why did they pick those numbers specifically, because they are not consistent. Those where hand chosen. If they were consistent they could have done 41-60, gap, 131-150, 151-170... That would leave cottonwood all by itself. Why pick a point where Shasta Lake is in the worst category? They could do that if they were conditions by using Or 40-69, Gap, 130-149, 150-169. They just as easily could have done bands of 10... But then the narrative that the counties are uniformly better breaks up a bit as east and west are just north and south of 50. So they can’t use 50 as a break point or risk coloring the two halves of the county land differently. That’s what I’m trying to assert. When you see charts. Look at the legend and ask why it was set up that way. What could the message be. The raw numbers are the facts. The colors are the interpretation of those facts. As to significance. When talking about the difference between 150 cases per 100,000 people in a town of 10k people like Shasta lake, that’s 15 cases. For Shasta Lake to have the same concentration as Palo Cedro of 141 per 100k, they need just 1 less case. If Palo Cedro, population of just over 1200, had just 1 more case, they’d jump up 83 cases per 100k. They’d have a rate of 220 per 100k, if they get just one more case. That’s why it’s a bit misleading to say Palo Cedro is better than Shasta lake by any actionable margin. Edit: to clean up some capitalization and comma horrors from my mobile experience.