If you know me, you know that I don't post often on social media (it has been a while!), but these are no ordinary times. Mathematical epidemiology has been an interest and one of my research areas since graduate school. I recently decided to take a look at some of the data and projection models myself to see if some of these dire projections (e.g. over half of the US population could get COVID-19) I have been hearing about on the news are actually plausible.
The bad news is that YES, it absolutely could happen. Don’t believe me! Look at the data for yourself (thanks to Dr. Ryan Johnson for putting this together): https://www.desmos.com/calculator/5pkeruydkx
Here you can see that the current trend is a near perfect example of exponential growth and if you change the value of X (days since march 1) you can see how many cases there will be if current trends continue. Spoiler: THE NUMBER GETS REALLY BIG REALLY FAST. Try X=50 to see what the number looks like in mid April. The good news is that the trend cannot go on forever. Either people will do something to slow its spread (more on that in a moment) or COVID-19 will continue to spread until it runs out of people to infect. I hope that we, as a society, will choose the former. Social distancing can have a dramatic effect on the spread of disease. If we do everything in our power to stay away from large gatherings and to take precautions like thorough hand-washing when we do interact with others, it can have a dramatic effect on the spread and ultimate severity of this pandemic. Again, don’t believe me, see for yourself! Here is a link to a simulation model for a COVID-19 outbreak (for the technically inclined) that has sliders to let you change how the virus behaves and how we respond: https://mybinder.org/…/Coronavirus-and-social-dista…/master… The moral of the story is that adopting social distancing early on (i.e. reducing the person to person contact rate) can cut the total number of people who ultimately get the virus in half! Unfortunately, the longer we wait, the less effective this response will be. So, don’t wait until it is too late! Even if you are young and likely to deal with only mild symptoms, you can save lives by taking preventative measures so that you do not pass it on. Note: The older the person the higher the mortality rate (https://www.theguardian.com/…/how-many-will-die-of-coronavi…). So, even if your own health and safety is not enough motivation, think of your parents and grandparents and any other elderly people that you know and start taking preventative measures now. And if you are not sure how to do that, take a look at some of the recommendations from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/…/get-your-household-ready-for-COVID-19…