Sameer Devakota
Bio 110 Assignment
Hypothesis
Number of infections don’t increase exponentially leading to control in spread of infections by
maintaining stay at home order issued by states.
Introduction:
The coronavirus disease (Covid-19) has been spreading at an alarming rate over the last four
months already claiming more than 90 thousand lives in the US and infecting more than 1.5
million people already. The number of new infections keep on rising every day. Most states in
the US issued shelter in place order to slow down the spread of the coronavirus in the
community. Here we discuss how two states California and Texas fared after issuing the stay at
home order and how infection rates were affected with the shelter in place.
Materials:
The data for this report were obtained from the daily updated case reports from the CDC
website.
Method:
We took the data obtained from the CDC and compared how two states California and Texas
compare to each other in terms of number of infections and per capita infection rate. The per
capita infection rate was calculated by dividing the number of cases by the total population of
the state and multiplied by 100 to give as a percentage. The data obtained were then plotted in
Sameer Devakota
Bio 110 Assignment
a line graph to compare the two states’ infection rate and total cases represented in the graphs
presented in the next page.
Results:
We analyzed the data obtained from the CDC and the graph created based on the CDC data for
both the states and as it has been observed in states like New York where the number of
infections increased at a much higher rate and exponentially, introducing a stay at home order
in both Texas and California helped slow down the number of infections. The results of the
analysis are presented in the next page.
Sameer Devakota
Bio 110 Assignment
Date
Cases California
Cases Texas
Infection rate
California
April 21, 2020
30978
19458
0.08
April 22, 2020
33261
20196
0.08
April 23, 2020
35396
21069
0.09
April 24, 2020
37369
21944
0.09
April 25, 2020
39254
22806
0.10
April 26, 2020
41137
23773
0.10
April 27, 2020
42164
24631
0.11
April 28, 2020
43464
25297
0.11
April 29, 2020
45031
26171
0.11
April 30, 2020
46500
27054
0.12
May 1, 2020
48917
28087
0.12
May 2, 2020
50442
29229
0.13
May 3, 2020
52197
30552
0.13
May 4, 2020
53616
31548
0.14
May 5, 2020
54937
32332
0.14
May 6, 2020
56212
33369
0.14
May 7, 2020
58815
34432
0.15
May 8, 2020
60614
35390
0.15
May 9, 2020
62512
36609
0.16
May 10, 2020
64561
37860
0.16
May 11, 2020
66680
38869
0.17
May 12, 2020
67939
39869
0.17
May 13, 2020
71141
42403
0.18
May 14, 2020
73164
43851
0.19
May 15, 2020
74936
45198
0.19
May 16, 2020
76845
46999
0.19
May 17, 2020
78839
47784
0.20
May 18, 2020
80430
48693
0.20
May 19, 2020
84057
51323
0.21
Table 1. Number of infections and per capita infection for California and Texas
Infection
rate Texas
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.08
0.08
0.08
0.08
0.09
0.09
0.09
0.10
0.10
0.11
0.11
0.11
0.12
0.12
0.12
0.13
0.13
0.13
0.14
0.15
0.15
0.16
0.16
0.16
0.17
0.18
Cases California
Cases Texas
Figure 1. Number of infections with time in California and Texas
May 19, 2020
May 18, 2020
May 17, 2020
May 16, 2020
May 15, 2020
May 14, 2020
May 13, 2020
May 12, 2020
May 11, 2020
May 10, 2020
May 9, 2020
May 8, 2020
May 7, 2020
May 6, 2020
May 5, 2020
May 4, 2020
May 3, 2020
May 2, 2020
May 1, 2020
April 30, 2020
April 29, 2020
April 28, 2020
April 27, 2020
April 26, 2020
April 25, 2020
April 24, 2020
April 23, 2020
April 22, 2020
April 21, 2020
Sameer Devakota
Bio 110 Assignment
Number of Infections Vs Time
90000
80000
70000
60000
50000
40000
30000
20000
10000
0
Sameer Devakota
Bio 110 Assignment
Infection rate Vs Time
0,25
0,20
0,15
0,10
0,05
Infection rate California
May 19, 2020
May 18, 2020
May 17, 2020
May 16, 2020
May 15, 2020
May 14, 2020
May 13, 2020
May 12, 2020
May 11, 2020
May 10, 2020
May 9, 2020
May 8, 2020
May 7, 2020
May 6, 2020
May 5, 2020
May 4, 2020
May 3, 2020
May 2, 2020
May 1, 2020
April 30, 2020
April 29, 2020
April 28, 2020
April 27, 2020
April 26, 2020
April 25, 2020
April 24, 2020
April 23, 2020
April 22, 2020
April 21, 2020
0,00
Infection rate Texas
Figure 2. Infection rate per capita in California and Texas
Discussions:
It can be observed in figure 1 and 2 that the number of infections has not increased
exponentially as we have initially hypothesized. The states adopting the stay at home order
early helped the states address that possible increase in infections. These two states have fairly
comparable rates of infections. The rates of infections though increasing with time have not
increased exponentially and the number of new infections has not gone up exponentially
either. The number of new infections going up and the gradual increase could probably be due
to more testing made available to people in both the states. It can be concluded that the stay at
Sameer Devakota
Bio 110 Assignment
home order was able to address the rapid exponential spread of infections in both these states
with comparatively high population compared to other smaller states.
Answer to the questions:
Question 3:
We used line graph here to represent the data to compare the rates of infections and per capita
infections Vs time. This was the best graph to visualize the increase in infections in both the
states and compare them accordingly. We plotted the number of infections in Y axis as the
number of infections is a dependent variable on time. Time (independent variable) is plotted in
the X-axis.