That said, and at the risk of sounding like a sore loser, I'm really questioning what's happening in NYS. 1,706 was their count five days ago, and as of now they're at 15,777. True, it's a large state of about 11MM people, but they're looking like Italy.
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Obviously this "Naive" exponential pattern needs to break in the next few days or we will be exceeding China very soon, against all logic ... (unless they had an undisclosed vaccine before the release, or their data is totally falsified--both of which are possibilities IMO).
I still think your equation will provide a usable description of the "Bell curve" once we are able to get it calibrated.