Covid-19 related deaths are mounting,
(Joint with Nathan Lauster and cross-posted at HomeFreeSociology) Unfortunately, more and more people are dying due to COVID-19. We won’t know the full toll from COVID-19 for quite some time. But we can at least start to get a sense of its impact. One useful way of assessing the impact, of course, is just to plot deaths attributed to COVID-19. This highlights the real loss of human lives associated with outbreaks.
Looking into real-time metrics to measure behaviour change.
With COVID-19 cases growing exponentially, Canada has introduced sweeping restrictions to curb the spread of the virus. People are asked to practice social distancing, work from home if possible, keep shopping trips to a minimum, keep a distance of at least 6 feet to people outside of their household, universities and schools have been closed, and travel has been restricted. Why social distancing? Just in case it’s not clear what the problem is, let’s take a look at the trajectory we are currently on.
Empty Homes Taxes can be useful, but let's keep the numbers and expectations straight.
(Joint with Nathan Lauster and cross-posted at HomeFreeSociology) Empty homes are in the news again in West Vancouver after a West Vancouver council motion asking the province for the power to levy their own Speculation and Vacancy tax. THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Provincial Government provide local governments with the power to levy their own Speculation and Vacancy Tax, so that they too can address housing affordability and other community effects of vacant homes.
Checking in on Vancouver travel data. And the novel corona virus.
(Joint with Nathan Lauster and cross-posted at HomeFreeSociology) The spread of Coronavirus is reminding us of just how often people travel around, especially as various locations become quarantined and international travel corridors get shut down. So let’s take a look at some basic data on travel patterns here of relevance to us here in Vancouver. Then we’ll put them back in the context of Coronavirus. TLDR: travel data is really interesting, don’t be frightened of travellers, and there’s still a lot we don’t know about coronavirus
Wealth and income are not the same thing. And it matters. Especially in BC.
(Joint with Nathan Lauster and cross-posted at HomeFreeSociology) Wealth and income are different things. Wealth is measured in terms of assets minus debts at any given point in time. It can accumulate or deplete over a lifetime and across generations. By contrast, income represents some variation of how much money one makes over a given time period (usually a year). Most people get this on some level. But since both income and wealth deal with people and their money, the terms are also often used interchangeably.
Too much data, too little time.
Mountain Doodles is an insomnia driven MountainMath side project, born out of random questions, trying to give partial answers through data.