Number of COVID-19 cases differed by race over the time between 2020-2022

by Afia-Grace Harris and Violet Reges

The goal of this project was to determine how the number of COVID-19 cases differed by race over time between 2020-2022. This analysis focused on Maryland, United States, and disregarded any other geographical locations. The data was collected by the state of Maryland and posted for public use. The data set included data from White, African American, Hispanic, Asian, Other, and “Not Available” races. 

The data provided was clean and did not need extra organization. The first nine days that data was collected were not accurate for no data was collected on day two and no data on the Hispanic population was collected until day ten. Therefore we disregarded the first nine days of data. Races with no COVID-19 data were also disregarded.  

There were some other issues with the dataset. The Maryland Government collected a running total of COVID-19 cases by race while analyzing, we found that on some days the running total of COVID-19 cases decreased. This is impossible as the total number of cases can only increase or remain the same. It was not possible for the analyzers to deduce which running total was correct or incorrect, so that data was kept in the dataset. To mitigate this issue, the graphs made of the running total of COVID-19 cases were not graphed on a day-to-day basis, instead, the graph was based on a quarterly count. The quarterly total would minimize the inaccuracies of the data enough to make those inaccuracies inconsequential to the accuracy of the graph.  

Read the full report here.