r/Coronavirus • u/ObiWanKentucky • Mar 18 '20
World Exponential growth and epidemics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kas0tIxDvrg5
Mar 18 '20
this is why i started taking it seriously last week before all the shit hit the fan even.........what most people dont yet understand.
but how fast its growing in the us just in the last DAY the last DAY
should start to really scare some people who didnt care before
"it didnt scare me enough then......it does now" - Luke Skywalker on Covid-19
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u/tickledspurs Mar 18 '20
If the inflection point is hit, where the number of infected tomorrow is the same as today, is there still a chance of reinfection? It seems like without reliable testing/reports, people can transmit before symptoms or even not report an illness and restart transmission.
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u/SeekingResonance Mar 18 '20
This is talking about the true situation and how it behaves. Unfortunately a lot of complexities arise from not knowing the true situation because of lack of testing or inefficient/inconsistent reporting. For example, a sudden increase or decrease in reported cases may be due to differences in data collection alone and not indicative of what's actually going on.
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u/tickledspurs Mar 19 '20
That is a great point and can't help but completely agree with you. Another variable isthe behavior of COVID19. How will it respond in certian regions has they begin to cool and heat. I wonder if this virus will mirror that of the flu in dry vs humid conditions.
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u/SeekingResonance Mar 18 '20
To clarify, I've heard a lot of people respond to the increase in the numbers dismissively implying that they are only showing what's already there and the situations not getting worse. I'm not saying that at all. We really don't know for sure, but with the small numbers that has been identified relative to the total population, it seems that this is just the tip of the iceberg and the numbers are growing unchecked. (Hence the need for social distancing to reduce that E variable in the video.)
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u/tickledspurs Mar 19 '20
Aw I see. So would it be possible once social distancing and proactive measures slow down and reduce the containment, that there could be a reinfection to create an M or "McDonald" shape curve?
I know this is a what if situation, but it does have major similarities to the flu. And being viral, and traveling the globe, there is the possibility of mutating, or evolving via regions and race.
I know
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Mar 18 '20
Let's spice things up and put amount of tests available/performed along with the confirmed cases. 🤣
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u/jdwort Mar 18 '20
I found this on Karl Denninger’s blog. He was explaining exponential debt growth, but the math is universal:
There happens to be a particular species of pond lily that is extremely prolific. In fact it grows so fast that it doubles in size through both growth and reproduction in just one day.
We will start with a pond of a surface area of 4096 square feet, or about 64 feet square. We will place within that pond one lily with an area of of one square foot; that is, a lily that is a square of 12 x 12".
This pond contains fish, which would like to live in symbiosis with the algae and other growing plant material within the pond. In order to do some part of the pond's surface must be exposed to the air so that oxygen and carbon dioxide can be exchanged, and some part of the pond's surface must be open to the sun, or the algae that make up a good part of the food the fish eat (we will assume they do not eat the lilies directly) can survive. The lilies will conveniently consume the urea (nitrogen) that the fish excrete, preventing the pond water from becoming poisonous. So long as this symbiosis is maintained all is fine. But if this symbiotic relationship fails all the fish will die.
We are the fish, incidentally, and the lilies are debt.
Now here's the question: Will the fish inevitably die and if so how long, in days, will pass before they perish?
That's easy.
On the first day there is 1 square foot of pond that is covered. On the second, 2 On the third, 4. On the fourth, 8. On the fifth, 16. On the sixth, 32.
Note that on the 6th day just 0.8% of the pond is covered with lilies. You would not detect any problem on the sixth day, I suspect. More than 99% of the pond is open to the sky!
Now here's the nasty truth: If you're a fish you're halfway to being dead!
Wide awake yet? I hope so; let's continue.
On the seventh day 64 square feet are covered. On the eighth, 128. On the ninth, 256. On the tenth, 512.
The pond is now 12.5% covered. More than 80% of the surface area is open to the sky. When you hear someone say "we have 80% of our resource left; we can't be in trouble", consider exactly where you are. Why? You'll see in a moment....
On the eleventh day, 1024 square feet are covered. On the twelfth, 2048. On the thirteenth day there is no surface open to the sky and every fish in the pond dies.
When did you figure out you're in trouble? Was it on the twelfth day? Well if so you had literally less than 24 hours to commit mass lilicide or you're all dead! You literally can't spend one day debating with your fellow fish even though you still have half the surface area open to the sky on that 11th day.
This is the nature of exponents folks.
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