Cumulative confirmed deaths, as reported by OWID. If OWID is not publishing up to date data, an alternative source will be used, with an attempt to replicate OWID's sources (WHO data) and methodology. Total death worldwide, since the start of the May 2022 outbreak.
As of the final report for 2024 dates.
Both WHO and OWID are deeply trailing Africa CDC, which currently is showing 724 associated deaths since the start of 2024. From an older report dated July 30, Africa CDC reported 1,451 cumulative deaths since 2022. Can anyone explain the reporting discrepancy?
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/mpox-deaths-rise-107-week-africa-cdc-calls-113629408
https://africacdc.org/disease-outbreak/mpox-situation-in-africa/
@noumena the reason I haven't bought these all to 100% is on the uncertainty of how Evan will choose to resolve the market.
@noumena a lot of news about new vaccine supplies going to countries in need; not much news about increased testing capacity going to same said such countries. This leads to a double underreporting: a lot of cases which the global medical system never sees, and a lot of easily confirmable cases (a fairly visible disease!) which do not get formal lab confirmation. I remain uncertain whether or not testing capacity will ramp in the remainder of the year.
@noumena Thank you for the detailed commentary!
uncertainty of how Evan will choose to resolve the market.
If OWID is still publishing this data, with reasonably frequent updates, I'll resolve based on the number reported by OWID. My understanding is that this matches the WHO data and there are no problems there.
Unfortunately it sounds like this wasn't the best choice of data source to forecast about, but changing data sources mid-question seems far worse than keeping the original choice.
Would it be worth making a new (pair of) questions that use better data sources? Is the Africa CDC reports the best data source to use? Are there other considerations I'm missing?
@EvanDaniel no, that deep dive convinced me that your choice of resolution criteria are reasonable. I think it's just that relative to COVID, there are a lot more suspected MPOX deaths that would have been easy to confirm except that testing capacity is constrained.
Very odd numbers for the past 4 weeks in DRC - 111 suspected deaths, 0 confirmed deaths. Not sure why, one plausible hypothesis is that testing and reporting capacity is being diverted to track and contain new spread rather than confirm existing illness. Overall reporting accuracy probably isn't the current priority for the people running those labs.
As of the final report for 2024 dates.
My intent here was "whatever the latest data point that OWID lists as 2024", not "we have to wait until then to resolve individual questions". When I made the question, the chart showed < 220 cumulative deaths. But, we've had some revisions since then, and there are now > 220 cumulative deaths as of question creation. Resolving that option true now.
In general, this seems to imply we should wait a bit after the new year to resolve remaining questions. Does anyone have an opinion about how long or an argument for a specific waiting period? Waiting until question close is an obvious choice, but if I'm not paying attention exactly at close it might be hard to figure out what the relevant number was. I'm inclined to extend it a bit to allow reporting delays. Comments and suggestions welcome!