Does this satisfy your doubts that the scientific community describes things as growing exponentially if, in some time frame their interested in, the phenomena does grow exponentially? — boethius
Really? You find TP in the shops where you live? — Nobeernolife
Yeah, the scientific community describes things as growing exponentially for as long as they grow exponentially. — SophistiCat
You may insist on exponential growth if you think you have a good handle on the causal mechanism, and can account both for the function and for the changing exponent, without having to make retrospective adjustments after each new measurement. — SophistiCat
How do you know that? Right now, it seems to be toilet paper. — Nobeernolife
Well, if it flows back to China for more cheap plastic crap, what the difference? — Nobeernolife
Countries that have had the outbreak earlier are good forecasts for later epidemic areas.I'm not insisting things will continue to grow exponentially in Italy, I'm saying it's not ruled out by the current data.
17% daily growth rate this week could mean 17% growth rate next week and the week after that and the week after that, until 50% of the population is infected and growth rate reduces due to running out of hosts.
Or, it could indeed mean 5% growth rate next week and then approaching 0% growth rate week after that.
Since we don't know which scenario we are in (precisely because we cannot know for sure all the mechanisms of transmission and how many need to be cut to approach 0% growth rate), is why, once this situation is reached the risk management conclusion quickly becomes "maybe what we're doing now is enough ... but we can no longer risk being wrong, so we need to do even more social distancing and enforce compliance with the military". — boethius
This is true, but there is also the crucial moment measured in days just when the pandemic got rolling on. When it started in Italy, Europe or the West hadn't got the pandemic hysteria. Now when it has truly started in the US, the population takes action. — ssu
And just how successful that "social distancing"? If we take into consideration that China has roughly about 24 more times people than Italy, then it wouldn't be that China has less deaths. Yet month ago when the epidemic started in Italy and when there were only a handful of deaths the actions were taken only regionally. The CNN journalist one month ago were reporting from a Venice quite full with tourists going around. — ssu
I figure there'll be flattening as more stringent measures are imposed, so my figure involves a continued fall-off in the log curve along recent Italian lines. — Baden
To me that looks like it'll peak before 100,000 cases. Scale up to America and they should slow down and peak before 1 million (I'm guessing in a couple of months) presuming increasingly strict measures (short of "hammer"-like moves, which still seem unlikely on a national level). — Baden
The politicians are headless chickens following what their experts tell them. There are teams of experts assembled in each (wealthy) country to manage the crisis. — Punshhh
Because everybody understands if a person dies to Covid-19, the reason is the pandemic.Teams of experts could easily be assembled to tell the headless chickens what to do about climate change. What gives one crisis traction and the other none? — frank
This is exactly what I explain in the sentence you reference. If in some time frame of interest (such as "until now"), the data fits an exponential growth curve, scientists will say "it is growing exponentially". — boethius
Thanks! It's strangely quiet right now (with rumbling in the distance) :grimace: — frank
they only test people if you know you've been in contact with someone who's tested positive — Michael
Maybe an exercise in Bayesian statistics? I.e., a concern with false positives? — tim wood
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