Curious COVID numbers in Tamil Nadu baffle statisticians!

The State Health bulletins released over the last few weeks in Tamil Nadu beg the question how the state reported over 5,900 cases each day, but never touched 6,000 for nine straight days in late August.

Coimbatore:

The State Health bulletins released over the last few weeks in Tamil Nadu beg the question how the state reported over 5,900 cases each day, but never touched 6,000 for nine straight days in late August.

The cases hovered over 5,900 cases each day, but never touched the 6,000 mark. While new cases kept rising across the country, Tamil Nadu has had a suspiciously and surprisingly stable late month. Starting August 20, the number of cases up until the 28th were 5,986, 5,995, 5,980, 5,975, 5,967, 5,951, 5,958, 5,981, and 5,996, respectively

Statisticians use standard deviation to comprehend how much a range of values deviates from the average. A standard deviation on the higher range means that a state might show large changes each day, while a low value leads us to the understanding that the number of new cases each day hovers near the same value.

Tamil Nadu has had the lowest standard deviation amind all the states for August. This means only one thing - that each day, new cases were only up to 4% lower or higher than the average value.

When compared to Maharashtra, for example, the standard deviation has been as high as 20% for the last month. Even in smaller states like Delhi and Kerala that reported lower number of cases, the standard deviation was between 28 and 30%.

here are other states that showed such periods of remarkable stability too; between July 22 and August 22, Gujarat showed little to no change in the number of daily reported cases and its standard deviation in cases too was just between 4and 5% , as Tamil Nadu's is now.

What could be the driving factor behind this phenomenon? Neither Tamil Nadu nor Gujarat has relented in testing, so that's not the reason. In fact, the two states conduct more tests each day, but still appear to have hit a common ground in the number of positives. The lack of plausible explanation to this conundrum has left a number of statisticians totally flabbergasted.

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