Zombie
Well-Known Member
You're right of course that the measures implented (if followed) will extend the time it takes to double the number of cases. Unfortunately due to the long incubation period, time it takes for symptoms to progress to the point of going to the doctor and finally getting tested there's a 10-14 day lag time before the numbers will start to slow down.The facts/stats are not sustaining the 3x or the 5d figure you're using in your thought experiment. It's a good idea to go over this, and then lay in factors about changes in behavior/movement that we are taking now, and you can calculate stuff like costs and improved results in the exercise, and get ROI figures used in business decisions.
If we mandatorily isolate known cases---quarantine them---as soon as they are diagnosed, and if we generally pull back from spreading behaviors.... travel, workplaces, public events, recreation crowds, we significantly alter the results.
If we get more testing done, and identify more of the unknowing/unknowable carriers, and quarantine them, we can really manage this outbreak/pandemic.... and we are ramping up and doing more of that.
your math is good, though. doubling 10x in 30 d gets you from 1 to 1000. Doing that a second 30d gets you from 1000 to 1000000.
That we're so far behind in testing also means that contact tracing and quarantining isn't happening on the scale it needs to to stop this is in its tracks any time soon.
Anyway, my post was meant more to illustrate why JazzyFresh's "we'd have to have 800k cases tomorrow for this to infect tens of millions of people" post was stupid and wrong.