Bowser498

Hello! I am Bowser498, and I am currently a 20-year-old college student hailing from Rhode Island that has been a lot more active on Wikipedia since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. A few things about me:

• I play tennis and golf; however, the pandemic (and college) have become a hindrance in improving. I'm working on it, though.
• I used to be a member of the Rhode Island Mathematics League until I graduated high school in 2020. I captained for my junior and senior years and ended up ranking #2 in the state and #1 in my grade in my senior year. To this day, I'm still amazed I pulled that off.
• Adding on to the last bullet, I'm currently a mathematics major in college (sophomore). Surprisingly, I don't know what I want to do for a career after college - I may go to graduate school but currently unsure. I'm more interested in applied mathematics than the rigor of real analysis but I still have to take the class.
• As my name probably gives it away, I'm a Super Mario fan. I obviously love Bowser, but Yoshi is about tied too. Toad isn't far behind either. My first "game" was a flash game called Super Mario 63 which came out over 12 years ago. I told myself at that time: "eh, I'll be flexible and play it because I love computer games", and I soon fell in love with that game. I've played most of later games on the DS, Wii, 3DS, Wii U, and sometimes Switch. I'm just waiting for either Mario Kart 9 or a really interesting game - I feel like since Odyssey and SMM2, there has been a drought of originality.
• While I'm great with LaTeX, I want to improve in it and force myself to be at least somewhat interested in the fundamentals of computer programming. As I mentioned before, I have no idea what I want to do after college, but at least knowing some basics of programming would be great.

I've been a primary editor for the COVID-19 pandemic in Rhode Island page since July 2020, making minor edits before then. Some of the things I do for that page include:

• Updating Rhode Island COVID-19 statistics each weekday using given data from the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH).
• Adding important COVID-19-related events to the page, whether a vaccine accomplishment, a government response to the pandemic, or outlining how specific events have been altered due to the pandemic; for example, the Providence St. Patrick's Day Parade and PVDFest.
• Updating weekly municipality statistics (cases, deaths, cases/100k) using my own spreadsheet with conditional formatting (NOTE: I may expand on this table in the future to give more in-depth statistics, but the RIDOH does not always give the most precise statistics, that is, if a count is between 0 and 5, the count is labelled as "<5").
• Ensuring that events are indeed factual (using reliable sources) and correcting any misinformation. This includes specifying events that may be described vaguely or simply correcting syntax issues.
• Using personally-created statistics, given statistics from the RIDOH as a backdrop, to better "understand" how the state is responding to the pandemic. Some of these statistics include:
  • The percentage of Rhode Island individuals partially vaccinated and the percentage of people complete with the primary series of vaccinations. I've read numerous sources, and certain ones will give you different percentages. More recently, I have decided to adopt a RIDOH statistic that counts only Rhode Islanders in the vaccine count. The reason why I feel that this is the best statistic is because many other sources will include people from a state other than Rhode Island in their count, meaning that certain groups, especially college students, may be over/underrepresented.
  • The percentage of new COVID-19 cases being "breakthrough cases". The calculation of this isn't too difficult to figure out - I just have my spreadsheet do the math for me! I only use data from 1/17/21 forward is because this date was the earliest possible date for someone to become "fully vaccinated". The same sort of calculation can be done for "breakthrough hospitalizations" and "breakthrough deaths".
  • The percentage of individuals fully vaccinated that have suffered a breakthrough infection, hospitalization, and/or death.
  • The case fatality rate (CFR): explained below.

My personally-created spreadsheet using RIDOH and other data can be found here.

Sometimes, I'll barge onto other states' Wikipedia pages and update data / information, if needed. This usually doesn't happen unless I have absolutely no life.

In addition to the work I have done for Wikipedia, I have done some "personal research" on statistical COVID-19 analysis, some of which comes from my spreadsheet for use on Wikipedia pages. For example:

• Determining the percentage change over the last week in numerous statistics: case rates (cases / 100k), fatalities, number of first/second vaccine doses administered, tracking the percentage of people similar to my age that are partially/fully vaccinated, etc.
• [IN PROGRESS] Rhode Island is the leading state in COVID-19 testing rates. As of December 29, 2021, it was the only state to have a testing rate of over six tests per individual. I am investigating how different COVID-19 case rates would be in states with states with smaller test rates. Currently, I am working on a linear comparison (i.e., when adjusting case rates, the percentage increase of cases / 100k will be directly proportional to the increase of the testing rate), but am definitely considering other scales (such as a logarithmic or even a logistic scale).
• I am creating least-squares regression analyses that are essentially comparing how US states voted in the 2020 election (i.e., which candidate won, and by how much) versus the percentage of the state that is vaccinated. I am creating regression lines for partial vaccination, "full" vaccination (completing the primary series of vaccinations), and one comparing the two vaccinations (partial vaccination on horizontal axis, "full" vaccination on vertical axis).
• Created a graph detailing the case fatality rate (CFR) throughout the pandemic in Rhode Island. In progress of testing out certain regression lines (other than a seven-day average curve) to predict how (and if) the CFR will decrease over time. This is critical because scientists may call an "end" to the pandemic once the CFR gets low enough; for comparison, influenza has about a 0.1% CFR while COVID-19 in Rhode Island has about a 0.97% CFR (since the beginning of the pandemic, going until April 14, 2022). If you are interested in viewing this, go to my personal spreadsheet and then to "CFR in RI".
• [CURRENT GOAL] Working on "endgame statistics" regarding the pandemic, which include a comparison of statistics on both a weekly and monthly basis. These mainly come from RIDOH, but personal statistics such as CFR and breakthrough percentages are critical in analyzing the possibility of an endemic.