LogFAQs > #959747114

Zeus posted...

Even without knowing the exact numbers, you should know enough to realize the combination of TX and FL is substantially larger than CA by itself.

This may surprise you, but people outside of the US generally don't care enough about US demography to memorize even ballpark figures for state populations.

Moreover, I'm not actually asking for that data (since I could very easily have googled it and done the math myself, given that I completed grade 3 and can therefore handle basic division) as I am encouraging TC and his ilk to properly process the data they use to try and make points. Whatever the conclusion turns out to be, comparing regions based on raw numbers instead of per capita statistics is almost always going to be a bad idea. This is no exception. Given how much local population density influences infectious disease spread, even per capita numbers don't tell the whole story, but modelling that becomes significantly more complex and is beyond what can be expected of most laypersons, and that doesn't change that you dramatically improve the credibility of your comparison by adding a common denominator.

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