Re:Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado
by tomp on Thursday January 06, 2022 @05:05AM
(#29821603)
Maybe but “exponential growth” is a conspiracy theory promoted by epidemiologists. In reality, growth follows the S-curve, so a milder, faster spreading disease will also saturate the population (flatten the S-curve) much sooner, so overall the impact will be much less.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado
by KSteffensen on Thursday January 06, 2022 @05:37AM
(#29821862)
I've seen this argument elsewhere and I don't get it. From my understanding the limitation on exponential growth, the flattening of the top part of the S-curve, comes from total population. There is no one left to infect, basically.
If the rising part of the S-curve is steep, that means people get infected within a shorter timespan and a corresponding higher load on hospital beds and healthcare personnel, which is what we are trying to avoid with the lockdowns.
What am I missing?
Also, calling exponential growth a 'conspiracy theory' seems unnecessary
Re:Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado
by cinntaile on Thursday January 06, 2022 @05:51AM
(#29821974)
A conspiracy theory lol. When they talk about exponential growth, they are talking about an R0 > 1. Yes, after some point it drops under 1 and flattens out because there are fewer and fewer people to infect.
Re:Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado
by _Microft on Thursday January 06, 2022 @05:10AM
(#29821641)
You want to keep the number of cases in a range that the health care system still can deal with. Reaching the the flat part of an S-curve (i.e. infecting everyone as fast as possible) is NOT desirable because that leads to many cases in very short term.