> I imagine that most people aren’t aware of the graphs.
And even if they are, they aren't aware of log scale.
And even if they are, they aren't aware of log scale.
I've worked with, presented, and consumed a lot of scientific data over my career and I still have a tendency to assume plots are linear no matter how many times I tell myself to always check scale first.
The relevant axis on this chart is the time axis, the x axis. The chart is linear in it. You see a bunch of nearly identical trend lines, and you have to just count how many days a given country is behind Italy. It doesn't matter what scale the vertical axis is in.
I have to wonder how many non-specialists would even know what “log scale” means.