“There are a couple of things going on here. First, the FT data is not a projection or based on a model or an interpretation. It is just a chart of raw numbers and it is historical, e.g. past or present perfect tense.
gas_drs hypothesis is an hypothesis, not a fact. It is projection of what could happen. Further it is based on a speculation and not an explanatory mechanism so it has no more credibility than your opinion or my dog’s opinion.”
I agree the data at FT, which is excellent, is a statement of facts. It is also misleading. If we are to make well-informed decisions then we should be able to make accurate comparisons. Knowing that Italy, as an example, has 4 times the rate of infection as we do here in this country, to me, is meaningful AND accurate. That meaning is not on display in that graph.
Regarding gas_dr and our dogs, I’m not buying your view. The doc made his assessment based on facts from real countries around the world and then overlayed those facts on our circumstance. While his projection is not fact yet, it is a logical approach to the problem — not dog guesses. There are so-called experts making all kinds of projections. You choose the one you like and I’ll choose the one I like. I just happen to like and believe in the doc’s very logical approach.
By the way, the numbers I posted are also facts, if Worldomenter is factual. It shows the growth factor trending slightly down since 3/22, with the exception of two outlier days. The average growth factor since 3/22 has been 1.13. The average since 3/11 was 1.30 Yesterday was 1.04 which is well below both averages. Those are facts and if the trend continues to decline (big if) so will the total cases. Now, that’s not a dog guess.
IC Clearly
You obviously have no scientific training, because you would realize that when you scale effects to the population, there are only two relevant numbers: In calculus it is written as 1/N dN/dt - the fractional increase in cases day over day, and the other is percent of population infected.
The former is about .13 for the US and about .05 for Italy - in other words the "RATE" [rate scientifically means change of a quantity per unit time] of infection in the US is almost 3 times as high as Italy. The second is the fraction of the population infected which is .16% for Italy and .04% for the US. Now why is this latter relevant - because saturation effects will not happen until a significant fraction of the population is infected. Even if both numbers are off by a factor of 100 it would barely effect the rate of spread of the disease.
That Italy has a higher fraction of population infected is because the epidemic has been going in Italy longer than the US - a fact we all know. With cases increasing in the US as they are, it is only a matter of time before we reach the same level of penetration as Italy.