Tuesday, May 11, 2021

this is as rough and dirty as it gets because i decided many months ago that i don't have time to analyze poorly collected data, and nobody's listening anyways, but here you go.

this is 2018/2019:


the broad shape of the curve is that the flu peaked twice - in late january and again in april. there's two ways to think about this. you could argue it's the weather, and that the dip is due to decreased contact in the coldest months. conversely, you could point to christmas and easter as increased transmission events.

this is covid data:


while the peaks are exaggerated - which makes sense because healthy, young people are getting tested for covid and wouldn't bother in a normal flu season - the shape of the data is essentially the same.

so, here's your homework assignment - test significance against the null hypothesis and tell me what it says.

but, i can tell you what the answer is without doing the actual math.