Benford’s Law and COVID-19 Reporting

Trust in the reported data of contagious diseases in real time is important for policy makers. Media and politicians have cast doubt on Chinese reported data on COVID-19 cases. We find Chinese confirmed infections match the distribution expected in Benford’s Law and are similar to that se...

תיאור מלא

מידע ביבליוגרפי
Main Authors: Koch, C, Okamura, K
פורמט: Journal article
שפה:English
יצא לאור: Elsevier 2020
תיאור
סיכום:Trust in the reported data of contagious diseases in real time is important for policy makers. Media and politicians have cast doubt on Chinese reported data on COVID-19 cases. We find Chinese confirmed infections match the distribution expected in Benford’s Law and are similar to that seen in the U.S. and Italy. We identify a more likely candidate for problems in the policy making process: Poor multilateral data sharing on testing and sampling.