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Articles on Statistics

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A ‘100-year flood’ doesn’t mean you’ll be flood-free for the next 99 years. Win McNamee/Getty Images

What’s a 100-year flood? A hydrologist explains

Flood plain statistics can be confusing. There are better ways to think about the risk of severe weather than 100-year storm or flood.
A November 2020 memorial in Washington, D.C. consisted of thousands of flags, each planted to remember someone who died of COVID-19. Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

578,555 people have died from COVID-19 in the US, or maybe it’s 912,345 – here’s why it’s hard to count

Record-keepers have a pretty good sense of how many people have died. But figuring out the cause of those deaths is a lot trickier – and that’s why reasonable modelers can disagree.
Socioeconomic and cultural data can help governments predict and slow the spread of the next pandemic. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

How to use statistics to prepare for the next pandemic

Many governments, including the US, already collect and make public population statistics that could help them prepare for the next pandemic.
A man of genius – but his ideas were not to the benefit of all humankind. Mondadori Portfolio/Hulton Fine Art Collection via Getty Images

Francis Galton pioneered scientific advances in many fields – but also founded the racist pseudoscience of eugenics

Smart people can have really bad ideas – like selectively breeding human beings to improve the species. Put into practice, Galton’s concept proved discriminatory, damaging, even deadly.
By mid-January, only about a quarter of the COVID-19 vaccines distributed for U.S. nursing homes through the federal program had reached people’s arms. Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images

The simple reason West Virginia leads the nation in vaccinating nursing home residents

West Virginia’s success holds some important lessons for other states and the rest of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
On Dec. 8, 2020, the first members of the public were given doses of a coronavirus vaccine. AP Photo/Frank Augstein, Pool

International Statistic of the Year: Race for a COVID-19 vaccine

The coronavirus vaccine was developed faster than any vaccine in history. It took just 332 days from the first sequencing of the virus genome to the first vaccines given to the public.
A girl views the body of her father, who died of COVID-19, while mourners who can’t visit in person are onscreen. Joe Raedle/Getty Images News via Getty Images

279,700 extra deaths in the US so far in this pandemic year

Health statisticians keep careful tabs on how many people die every week. Based on what’s happened in past years, they know what to expect – but 2020 death counts are surging beyond predictions.

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