Math Shows The Danger Coming Soon

Can simple math help people understand how seriously we need to act? Some estimate doubling time of 3 days, which means every week there are 4 times as many cases of COVID-19. What happens to a community that currently has 25 cases?

I pick 25 cases as this is about the number of confirmed cases in Alaska and South Dakota (all other states are higher). And let's keep in mind that the actual number of infected people is much, much higher than the number confirmed - because we never got widespread testing deployed to the population.

Here are the numbers. The math is easy - just double the number twice each week (current estimate is doubling every 3 days).

In three months, if there were only one community with a small population of infected patients, half the country would be infected. Considering that all 50 states have significant number of infections, so the next month or two look pretty dire. Yet many still are in denial or want to believe others who tout this as overblown. The data are irrefutable.

In the US, we have over 40,000 confirmed cases. If we don't act radically to control the spread, half the country could be infected in ~7 weeks.

Please, isolate yourself. Wash your hands. Be smart and careful. Your life may depend on it, and being even a bit reckless means you could get infected, and even if you were asymptomatic, infect someone else and kill them. Don't do that.

Addendum: Everyone - those in New York, across the US and globally, should follow the instructions that Boris Johnson gave to the UK this afternoon as a minimum level of care. (Johnson has not exactly been instituting policies driven by science/data, but finally seems to be shifting in that direction.)

Everyone "must stay at home" and not even meet with family members who live outside one's household. Read these instructions and embrace them as the minimum level of care you should employ.\