Definitely. Noticing it's log scale (or anything non-linear) takes a trained eye.

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.

Any half-decent plot aimed at non-specialists will have "log scale" written in the title or surrounding description. The one linked by 'soVeryTired didn't, which is where FT dropped the ball. But it does not matter here.

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.

> Any half-decent plot aimed at non-specialists will have "log scale" written in the title or surrounding description

I have to wonder how many non-specialists would even know what “log scale” means.

I didn't mean a non-specialist as in an average Joe; I meant an above-average Joe with some interest in one or more of: economy, physics, electronics, mathematics, biology. There's loads of such people.