Question

NATIONAL CENTER FOR CASE STUDY TEACHING IN SCIENCE Part 1 - Washington State To understand the need for social distancing let's begin by Table 1. Positive/confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of March looking at the first reported case of COVID-19 in the United 26, 2020. (Case data from Washington State Department States and some of the demographics of the area. The first of Health, population data from Washington State Office of Financial Management, http://www.ofm.wa.gov.) reported case of COVID-19 came on January 21, 2020 in the state of Washington from a man returning from Wuhan County Number of Cases 2019 Population China, the epicenter for COVID-19. By March 26, 2020 the King 1577 2,226,300 ten counties listed in Table 1 reported the following data. Snohomish 778 818,700 Pierce 186 1 888,300 Questions Island 64 84,820 1. Using spreadsheet software plot the number of Skagit 78 129,200 confirmed cases by population size. Does your graph Kitsap 33 270,100 support a relationship between number of cases and Grant 33 98,740 population size? Whatcom 186 225.300 2. Next, plot the number of cases in each county Yakima 61 255,950 per 100,000 residents. Does your graph support a Thurston 24 285,800 relationship between percent of cases in cach county per 100,000 residents? 3. What could account for any differences in the relationship you identified in Question 1 versus Question 2? 4. The population density map below (Figure 1) appears to shed light on why counties with low population have a high number of cases. However, referring to the graph showing number of cases per 100,000 residents, what outlier counties do not support that claim?