Coronavirus is growing exponentially – here is what that really means

 

Coronavirus is growing exponentially – here is what that really means

Excerpt from Christian Yates, Senior Lecturer in Mathematical Biology, University of Bath

 

This is an optimistic graphic. Even so, if we choose the 50% (middle) exposure rate. It is still eye popping!

For everyone person infected, 4 others will become infected. This is the nature of Pandemics. But what, precisely, is exponential growth? The mathematical definition says that a quantity that increases with a rate proportional to its current size will grow exponentially. This means that as the quantity increases so does that rate at which it grows. The more infected people we have of a disease outbreak, the more people they will infect and the more the cases will rise. As of October 19, we have 8.26M cases. That would tell us the exponential spread would result in over 33M cases in the future.

Recent media reports incorrectly report the increase in COVID-19 with alarm. This, when science predicts the results. The early panic may have caused a slowing (75%+ staying home) while we may have now fallen back to only a 50% reduction.

The point is, that people living in fear because of a seemingly unknown reason for the uptick in cases is simply wrong. People are living with great stress. They need to understand their environment. The purpose of this article.

This pandemic is doing what pandemics do. Following the protocols is the best individuals can do. The scientific community will come up with new antivirals and eventually a vaccine. Until then, we should all remain calm (relatively) while we live through this Global Pandemic.