Re:Open letter from Italy to the international scientific co...
by rcxdude on Sunday March 15, 2020 @01:21PM
(#22584813)
The growth will always be exponential. What you can change is the exponent. I don't think they are crazy for suggesting that extreme measures are unsustainable and their use should be timed correctly. I'm not completely sure they're right, but neither am I sure that extreme measures are right. Keeping a quarantine on a whole country up for 2 years seems unlikely. As I understand it, this plan hasn't just been hastily put together overnight, a team has spent a while researching and modelling outbreaks in preperation for just such a scenario, and as such I am inclined to trust them more than politicians (who are always happy to be seen to be doing something about a problem) and laypeople on the internet.
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Re:Open letter from Italy to the international scientific co...
by trashtester on Sunday March 15, 2020 @02:07PM
(#22585286)
Growth does NOT have to be exponential (or at least not with any near-constant exponent). Furthermore, if the doubling rate is half a year or more, it really does not matter that much if it exponential, unless the number of already infected is already huge, since a vaccine is likely to come within 2 years.
From my perspective, it appears that politicians do NOT want to take sufficiently drastic measures, as the economic consequences will be huge (let's assume that Spain and Italy will keep or increase the measures they already have for 2 years), and so far, their measures do not seem to be sufficient.