Mom, we know what the exponential growth rate was because it is shown in Travis's charts. What changed to keep it from increasing by a another factor of 100 two weeks from now. There is one thing only - we initiated social distancing.
It is like this. Everyone is driving 80mph on a densely packed interstate and a dense fog is rolling in. Modlers project 1000's will die from the pile-ups and this is advertised loudly and everyone slows down to 20 MPH and most pull off the road. Two days later, there were a couple of odd collisions an a couple of fatalities and everyone starts blaming the modelers for hotel bills and late deliveries and missed weddings. How did they get it so wrong??
Well no, they modeled what would happen if no one did anything, and seeing this the authorities and the driving public realized that they needed to engage in socially responsible behavior to prevent problems.
But you can't say, oh they were wrong, let's all get back on the freeway in dense fog and drive 80MPH.
The precipitating condition - dense fog - needs to go away.
This is not correct, Andy. In the University of Washington Model (IMHE model) social distancing was assumed in the 100,000 then the 80,000 and now the 60,000 death projection. Without social distancing the model predicted deaths of 1 million+. Dr. Birx addressed this in the briefing today, explaining that the models assumed what happened in NYC and NJ would happen nationwide and fortunately that is not happening. This is part of the reason for the downward adjustment of the model.