Now that we are many months into the COVID-19 pandemic, we can start to reexamine the data and look for trends. This time, I want to explore how COVID-19 has been spreading around the US. I do this by animating a county map over time. What is animation? Are you
Now that we are many months into the COVID-19 pandemic, I've started going back and reexamining the data for lessons or trends (you might say hindsight is 20/20). This time, I want to explore how COVID-19 has been spreading around the US. I do this by using a graphical idea
During the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic, you've probably formed a great appreciation for good, informative graphics. Good graphics can help you get a handle on thousands of individual data values, see the geographical distribution, or look for trends. In February, I wrote a blog post about creating a coronavirus dashboard with
Now that COVID-19 is spreading in the US, I thought it might be helpful to view the data at a more granular level. Follow along as I plot the county data on a map and discuss how the color-binning can influence people's perception of the data. Maps like this can
Everyone's thinking about the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), and wondering if there are any cases near where they live. I recently used SAS Software to create a dashboard with a world map showing which countries had reported cases. And now that the virus has spread around the world, a world/country-level
The COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak has been in the news a lot lately, and everyone is probably looking for a quick/easy way to see the data. The best visualization I've seen so far is this dashboard by Johns Hopkins. Here's a screen-capture: But before we dive into the data analysis, let's
The coronavirus has been a big item in the news lately - it's a pneumonia-like illness that has killed several people. It's thought to have started in China, and has spread to several other countries (including at least one case in the U.S.). The World Health Organization says the coronavirus
The flu season has started here in the U.S., and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data it has caused 214 deaths in the first week of 2020. Is this number higher, or lower, than usual? When does the flu season start, and how long does
Cases of the measles have certainly been making headlines in the news recently. And with all the data at our disposal these days, it seems like we should be able to predict which areas in the US are most likely to have measles outbreaks, eh? A group of independent researchers
Here in the US, there's a lot of talk about the flu each year. First, people discuss whether or not to get the flu shot. Then there are discussions about whether or not you or your friends have the flu (or something else). Then the discussions about what strain of
I recently read an article that said a school in Asheville, North Carolina had the worst chickenpox outbreak in the state in 2 decades. The article was interesting, and it also let me know I had a hole in my knowledge ... "What?!? - There's a chickenpox vaccine?!?" When I
The flu seems to be especially potent this year. "How potent is it," you might ask? ... Well, let's plot some data on a map to help find out! Here in the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) compiles data about diseases, and provides reports and graphs
Have you, or someone you know, gotten the flu this year? Word on the street is that this year's flu might be particularly bad, and the data seem to be corroborating that so far. You don't want to take my word for it? -- well then, let's have a look
I recently saw an alarming article on social media about an outbreak of airborne plague spreading from Madagascar to Africa (and potentially to the rest of the world). The plague?!? - I thought that only happened hundreds of years ago?!? I don't really trust news on Facebook, so I went
Let's create a souped-up SAS map that can track Zika-carrying mosquitoes down to the county level, in the US! A few months ago, I wrote a blog post with a world map of documented locations of the Aedes mosquitoes that could carry the Zika virus. The world map showed a high concentration
Have you ever been bitten by a mosquito? What are the odds it carried the West Nile virus? ... Perhaps a lot higher than you thought! Here's a picture of a mosquito that kept 'bugging' me around my computer desk at home - good riddance, I say!
Smoking is an addictive habit that can kill you - if you don't believe me, check out the infographic in this blog post. Recently a friend of mine was on the episode of the Dr. Phil show that focused on "quitting smoking." Here's a picture of Traci with Dr. Phil
Has this year's flu been better or worse than you thought it would be? There are a lot of factors that help determine whether or not you're likely to get the flu. Is there a bad strain going around? Did the flu vaccine target the right strain? Did you get
Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1979, after an extensive vaccination campaign in the 19th and 20th centuries. This blog post contains a visual analysis of the final years of this disease in the US ... In my previous blog post, I imitated and improved infectious disease graphs from a recent Wall
The Wall Street Journal recently published some graphs about seven infectious diseases, and I tried using SAS to improve the graphs ... it's a veritable infectious disease (graph) bake-off! Let's start with Measles ... here's a screen-capture of WSJ's measles graph: In general, their graph is eye-catching, and I learned a lot
There are many ways to use SAS in Health & Life Sciences, and one of my favorite is using it to track the spread of diseases. This post demonstrates how to layer several customized maps to track the recent Ebola outbreak in Africa. In this blog post, I describe how I
You've all heard about the recent meningitis outbreak, right? Being a data-guy and a map-guy, I went looking for maps related to the outbreak. I found the following map on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website. It shows the states that received the recalled drug used in epidurals (for back
