As I mentioned in my previous post, the US Census place-of-birth data is available at the census tract level. Wouldn't it be nice to visualize this, by looking at a map of a state? And be able to zoom down to cities and neighborhoods, and see the differences from tract to tract? Well, now you … Continue reading Visualizing Where We are From
Where We are From
Today we're going to look at the same Census place-of-birth data as my earlier post. But this time, instead of looking at the state level, we'll drill down to something called a Census Tract. A census tract is a small, usually permanent geographical division. Typically their population ranges between 1,200 and 8,000, with an optimum … Continue reading Where We are From
Binned Heatmaps
The New York Times has a lot of good COVID info; one of their pages tracts the vaccine rollout rate per state. Here's today's graph: This is known as a 'heatmap' - it uses colors to differentiate the values of the regions (here, states). In this case, it's a 'binned' heatmap - the map uses … Continue reading Binned Heatmaps
Pausing AstraZeneca
Many European countries have paused the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine, due to a small number of reported blood clot cases in people who recently received the vaccine. Obviously any possible serious side effects need to be studied, but the decision to actually halt the use of the vaccine has its own costs. Let's do … Continue reading Pausing AstraZeneca
“Are You From Here?”
Pop Quiz: Name the two states that have the highest percentage of residents who were born in the state. Answer: Louisiana and Michigan. You probably didn't see that coming; I know I didn't. About four of five Louisianans (78.05%) were born there. Of the remainder, 17.8% were born in other states, and 4.2% were foreign … Continue reading “Are You From Here?”
Sudden Swings
When comparing the results of two consecutive presidential elections, we can calculate the swing of each county: how much the vote changed from the previous election. If in 2016 a random county was D+8 and last year it was D+4, that's a 4 point swing toward R. Typically, across all 3000+ counties in the US, … Continue reading Sudden Swings
Interesting Trends
Today I'll be talking about Adjusted Trends. As you may recall, Adjusted Trend compares how county voted from one election to the next, adjusting for the national lean. This determines which way they are swinging (i.e., becoming more Democratic or Republican). For example, Yamika county in Washington state in 2016 was R+13.1 and in 2020 … Continue reading Interesting Trends
Florida: not pivotal, but still interesting
At the national level, Joe Biden improved on Hillary Clinton's margin by 2.4 points (Clinton "won" by 2.1%, while Biden beat Trump by 4.5%). In 2016 Trump won Florida by a mere 1.2%, so all things being equal, Biden should have taken Florida. But of course, all things aren't equal, and Trump improved his Florida … Continue reading Florida: not pivotal, but still interesting
2020, one state at a time
The full 2020 election results at the county level are available, and I'll be looking at a few key states. Let's start of Pennslyvania, because why not? Here are PA's counties, shaded red or blue depending on how strongly they supported the R or D candidate. Light shades means the vote was close to 50/50; … Continue reading 2020, one state at a time
What Does 90% Effective Mean?
There's been great news on the Covid-19 vaccination front the past couple of weeks, with excellent preliminary results for vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. Both report higher-than-expected effectiveness (Pfizer 90%, Moderna 94.5%). But what does it mean for a vaccination to be "90% effective"? (I'll use the Pfizer number because it makes the math easier). … Continue reading What Does 90% Effective Mean?