is this a sample or a population?

Question

The data in the table below (and continued on the following page) show the 46 counties of South Carolina, and the number of cumulative COVID-19 cases reported by each county from the start of the pandemic through August 1^st, 2020. Use the data to answer the project questions

it lists the counties and number of covid cases

Answer 1

Question 1: Is this a sample or population: To answer this question you have to ask yourself is everyone that my data is used for accounted for. You could argue that it's a population statistic if you're only interested in tracking rates in SC with no generalization to the greater population. However, you could also argue that it is a sample statistic because we only know infections for the random sample of the population that got tested. Personally, I tend to be cautious and use sample calculations, but only you know the requirements of your task.

Question 2: Is this data discrete or continuous: Simple answer is that this is continuous data for calculation purposes. For calculation purposes the number of infections is ratio level data with a lower bound (0 infections) and what equationaly will act like no upper bound. So to recap, if a teacher asks or if you're doing calculations using current methods (such as regression based forecasting) this is continuous data.