What does a retired scientist do during a pandemic? Keeps crunching the data.
Dave Eberth has kept busy during the Coronavirus outbreak and has built up a following online watching and digesting his work.
Each day, when new numbers are released by the province regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, he takes the time to plot the most recent information and presents it in an easy to access format. Each day he posts his work on Facebook.
“It got started because AHS was being very inconsistent with their own numbers and I was finding it very difficult to rely on their charts,” explains Eberth. “They have gotten all of that straightened out now.”
“Once I got into doing it, I became really interested in all these questions that were floating around the internet.”
He said, for example, the whole issue of Sweden’s lax approach and seeing how different political affiliations were reacting. He delved into the numbers and he said they show quite clearly the problems with that approach.
“I started realizing there are a lot of people out there who are not informed about the numbers. Day after day this goes on and we are wondering when will this stop? The numbers help calm the waters a little bit and we can see why we are doing what we are doing and how things are progressing,” he said.
He goes beyond simply the Alberta numbers, some days looking at national and international statistics, and comparing and contrasting the situations and approaches. Beyond just charts and graphs, he offers some interpretation and insight.
“I try to put in comparisons to make it clear how well we are doing and give people some encouragement,” he said.
In following how the pandemic has progressed, he sees the different governments are presenting the information. Some are more transparent than others and it is obvious. He says Alberta’s presentation is one of the best.
“Alberta has done a really good job of transparency, making everything really clear and very interactive,” he said.