The real, visceral tragedy that is COVID-19 notwithstanding, I think it brings a marvelous example of why statistics, the importance of accuracy in data collection, and the effects of exponential growth are a must-have in today's highschool curriculums.
Imho, exponential growth especially, and then clustering.
Some pretty animations in a lesson might be helpful.
Fire grows in a similar way.
I've seen people up in arms because of things like a workplace of 1000 people shut down because "only" 20 people tested positive one day.
What's the problem?
To people who don't understand exponential growth it seems like 1 in 50 people is a fuss about nothing.
To people who do understand, it's an early-warning signal which says 500 people will get it in weeks due to the confined workspace, if not stopped urgently. And they will infect 1000s in the surrounding community in the same timeframe.
(To anyone tempted to point out the published R isn't that high, local R is highly dependent on situation and who mixes with whom. In a confined workspace, especially with people moving around, it's higher than in the general population. This is why it's useful to teach clustering in addition to exponential growth.)
This government had a statistics screw-up just two months ago and the only negative reaction was about how they handled the fallout. As a nation we simply do not understand its value - or the cost of it being misused.
When I did my A-level in maths the course was half pure and half applied maths.
The pure maths course was mandatory, but for the applied side you had the choice of either mechanics or statistics. At the time I was much more interested in physics, and was considering it as a degree course but, even if I'd done that, statistics would have been far more useful to me.
I certainly wouldn't choose to drop geometry or calculus, but I've had many occasions to regret my choice of mechanics over statistics during the past two decades.
I mean, statistics relies heavily on calculus. It might be best to try and fit both in. Something at least a little bit fun and educational could be achieved with some dice throwing or simple computer simulations. High school students place dice games, they will immediately appreciate how useful a bit of probability would be in that context.
Trignometric calculus comprised at least half my high school calc assignments ~20 years ago. Surely that can be scaled back in favour of more lessons on statistics and probability.
Change in deaths over change in statistical illiteracy is positive eh? How positive? Presumably the change in statistical illiteracy depends upon the magnitude of the deaths. It'd be an interesting relationship to study...
Then that is nuts, and you don't need to remove calculus to fix it.
Presumably there's something you're teaching that we (in the UK) aren't, or more depth somewhere, but I don't know what it is. Our systems are quite different in that mathematics becomes optional after GCSEs (15-16yo) here, but statistics is taught from a far younger age than that, to that, and beyond for those that take A level(s) in mathematics. (As I recall there are six statistics A level modules total, S1-6, I think S1-2 are compulsory for a full A2 (vs. AS) mathematics qualification (which consists of six modules total). In order to do all six statistics modules one would at least take the second A level 'further mathematics', and probably (pun intended; unless statistics was a particular passion and the school allowed it) 'further additional'.
NB I quite liked that structure - there are 18 'modules' total (arranged in 'core', 'further pure', 'decision' (algorithms), 'statistics', and 'mechanics'. Three A levels total available (six modules each) or fewer and an AS (three). Which ones you want to do are almost entirely up to you if the school's big/lenient enough. IIRC you could even decide for yourself how to allocate the modules' grades across the number of A levels you were eligible for, e.g. if AC would be more beneficial to you than BB.
The problem the world has right now is not a lack of understanding of what exponential growth means. Plenty of people understand that just fine. It's so easy to understand that there is even a simple ancient parable about it (of the Chinese Emperor and the chess board).
The problem is people who are obsessed with the concept of exponential growth even though "grows exponentially until everyone is infected" is not a real thing that happens with viruses, even though COVID-19 no more shows exponential growth than the sine wave does (sin roughly doubles at points), even though Farrs Law is all about how microbial diseases show S-curve type growth.
This leads to crazyness like the UK's chief medical officers going on TV and presenting a graph in which the last few data points are in decline, but with sudden endless exponential growth projected into the future, along with claims that "this isn't a prediction, but clearly, we have to take extreme action now because of exponential growth".
Observing exponential growth for a few days in a row does NOT mean endless growth until the whole world is infected. Growth rates can themselves change over time, and do. That's the thing people don't seem to understand.
