Thursday, March 26, 2020

On the mathematics of infection and the case for quarantine at this time

This is being written March 26, 2020:

I was pondering what R2.5 meant. It really means 2.5 people will be infected for each confirmed case; but it also means an additional 2.5 people per case per week.In the 13 weeks since this was discovered. The results show the importance, at this time, of social distancing.
Consider this: 82,000 people have recovered from this virus. In comparison only a handful have died.
82,000 carriers, who infected 2.5 people each, thus whether testing has confirmed or not, whether they've developed symptoms or not, 205,000 people are now also carriers.
Since it takes 10 days of being contagious before you get sick, you can assume those 205,000 infected 512,500 others, who went on to infect 1,281,250 others, who went on to infect 3,203,125 others who went on to infect 8,007,812 others who went on to infect 20,019,531 others who went on to infect 50,048,828 others who went on to infect 125,122,070 others who went on to infect 312,805,175, who went on to infect 782,012,939 people, who went on to infect 1,955,032,348 people, who went on to infect 4,887,580,871 people, which covers the 13 weeks it has been since a smoking doctor got arrested for spreading rumors of illness in China.
That's more than half the planet that has been exposed.  Consider if the rumors are right and this so-called "novel" virus mutated just 13 weeks earlier (there are some people now claiming they had an illness that matched these symptoms back in November, possibly October).
And you think two weeks of quarantine, maybe reducing the R factor down to 2, would make that much of a difference?
Let's do the math, backing up two weeks and adjusting to an R of 2.
782,012,939 people were infected two weeks ago. With an R factor of 2, They infected 1,564,025,878 people who went on to infect 3,218,051,756. Slightly LESS than half the human race.
Add 10 days of infection, plus 14 days of sick, and we should be seeing this begin to subside (as much as it does) about April 24th to April 28th.
And now you know why that's the deadline for reassessing social distancing. We will either see effects by then, or we won't.

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Oustside The Asylum by Ted Seeber is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at http://outsidetheaustisticasylum.blogspot.com.