Posted on 03/11/2020 5:51:49 AM PDT by C19fan
There’s an old brain teaser that goes like this: You have a pond of a certain size, and upon that pond, a single lilypad. This particular species of lily pad reproduces once a day, so that on day two, you have two lily pads. On day three, you have four, and so on.
Now the teaser. “If it takes the lily pads 48 days to cover the pond completely, how long will it take for the pond to be covered halfway?”
The answer is 47 days. Moreover, at day 40, you’ll barely know the lily pads are there.
That grim math explains why so many people — including me — are worried about the novel coronavirus, which causes a disease known as covid-19. And why so many other people think we are panicking over nothing.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I know we agree on little....but that it hilarious.
This is called the R naught equation.
lol....
Am so.
Stupid. Not exponential. Epidemics rise and fall in a bell-shaped curve. AIDS, SARS, Ebola, seasonal flu.
Sounds like one of those stupid Common Core “gotcha” questions. How about providing the total square footage of the pond and the average size of a lily pad for us really old farts that like to calculate things by good, old-fashion mathematics?..../s
Still racing around screaming hysteric chicken little lies again today I see.
Real facts for those interested in Science and data not politically motivated panic mongering and lying.
121,340 total cased WORLD WIDE. 50,00 active cases 70,000 resolved case
4380 deaths. Average age of death: 80 years old
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
No. Biological functions such as the growth of bacteria or spread of a disease are exponential functions. A bell curve describes a population distribution, not a growth process.
The spread of the covid-19 is showing a classic growth curve progression.
If the number of lilly pads doubles every day, and the pond will be covered on day 48, then it will be half-covered on day 47. That's what "doubles every day" means. How will the square footage of the pond help you calculate that better?
Nature is not that neat. One lily pad or host is not always going to result in two more. Some might, some might be "leaf" nodes and spread no further. Some might produce three... So while it may be somewhat useful for characterizing the potential, it has very little to do with reality. In computer algorithms we call this "big-Oh" notation, a way to bound a problem/algorithm, but not an exact prediction of performance.
This scary prediction fails to take into account any natural feedback mechanisms. The article even makes reference to some instituted in Asian nations. Things like reducing social interaction, improved hygiene, etc. The population will react and take measures that will impact the growth curve.
Is corona virus going to be bad? Yes, it already is. It is a tragedy for the families that have already lost loved ones to it. I personally doubt it is going to be as bad as the plain old flu. Yes it spreads as easily, maybe even easier, and yes it currently has a higher mortality rate. However, there is so much hype and sensationalism about it people are over-sensitized. So while I'm sure most of this in the MSM is in fact intended to be used as background to hurt President Trump, it does serve a purpose - it will frighten many people into taking drastic action. Last year, if one of your coworkers came down with the flu - would everyone else at work self-quarantine? Would the office shut down? No, it would be "Bob has the flu? Gee that's too bad." and work would go on. Maybe one or two of Bob's co-workers would come down with it too because he didn't go home / stay home soon enough - he was trying to power through it. Not so with corona virus and all the FUD. People will take (heck, are taking) far more drastic actions. So even though corona has the potential, it is getting a lot more attention and will be thwarted.
If that were true all human and animal life on the planet would have been killed by viruses (or some other organism) long ago.
You should also notice that it is a rare situation for a pond to be100% covered by lily pads in the real world.
“...How will the square footage of the pond help you calculate that better?...”
It may not help me calculate it “better”, but I like to see things in real working numbers. Obviously, if it’s doubling every day, then working backwards from a full coverage on day 48 would give day 47 as being half covered. I get the point.
I kinda do the same real numbers thing with my checkbook too. :)
Don't you mean "expo-dential?"
Not stupid, either. Epidemics do rise and fall, but the rise is approximately exponential until limiting factors come into play. It's hard to say early how "high" the curve will get before it flattens and turns down early on.
There's a tension between caution and panic. It's hard to say where the balance should be absent more information. Saying "there aren't nearly as many COVID cases as there have been of the flu" is true today, but it is normalcy bias to say that because that's true there's no need to be concerned.
It’s good that this has given the little known and little brained journalists at the Post and Times something to do.
Keep their little hands and brains busy and don’t play in traffic.
Stop posting that the average age of death is 80.
No. As long as there are sufficient resources, growth remains exponential. When resources run out, then growth stops and the system enters a decline phase. Without any measures to prevent its spread, coronavirus cases will increase exponentially until every person who is susceptible to catching the disease has caught it.
Most biological functions occur exponentially. Population growth, bacterial growth, spread of infectious disease, the perception of light or sound, response to a drug, etc. We call the exponential function a "growth curve" or "drug response curve," depending on the exact entity that we are measuring.
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