It's not a case of media hysteria driving social isolation; it's simple math.
It's been said that figures don't lie but liars figure. You can decide for yourself.
Sober Math and the Pandemic:
Currently, the number of confirmed sick folks doubles every three days.
Without social isolation (which some people see as a hysterical over reaction) you can assume most folks come in contact with at least 10 people during the course of their day.
It takes about five days or more for someone to become symptomatic and realise they may be sick with it.
Therefore each person who is sick, and doesn't know it, and is out and about, has the potential to transmit to 10 or more other people, who then go out and infect more folks.
And if you feel 10 people is too, high substitute 5 and the end result (below) will be just as sobering when you divide my result by 2.
To continue, take the number of confirmed cases and times it by 10 to get the number of potential carriers and now take that number and times it by 2 to the 10th power or 1024.
2 to the tenth gives a picture of how many sick people you'll have on day 30 with an infected population that doubles in size every three days.
On 3/19/2020, the Austin Texas American Statesman (daily newspaper) posted 41 known cases in Travis county.
You can use the current number of confirmed cases in your city, town, county, hamlet parish or country.
So if you take 41 x 10 .... 410 ... and then 410 x 1024 .... You get 419,840 infected folks by day 30.
Now assume only 15% will be seriously ill that means 62,976 needing hospitalization in Travis County Texas by day 30 if folks don't self isolate.
Yes, it's kinda grim if the numbers hold, and folks don't self-isolate now.
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CLLBGone
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Yeah but expecting people to self isolate isn’t a good idea , you need to trace where people have been tested positive and who they came in contact with to get to the root of the problem,
or self isolation is useless because people that have it with no symptoms are spreading it
The math speaks for itself. This virus often takes at least five days to manifest itself. Self isolation is a must if this thing is to be slowed regardless if someone knows if they are a carrier or not.
Here are where my numbers came from if anyone doubts that the virus doubles every three days Here are the sad statistics for the United States.
March 11 - 1301 ... March 14, - 2943
March 17 - 6411 .... March 20 - 19,383
We tend to think linearly and not logarithmically.
The nature of exponential math means the numbers start small and then explode. And consequently hospitals and services are over whelmed.
Social distancing is the only way to slow the spread until medical measures are discovered & available.
Here is a chart of confirmed cases and deaths by country, territory, or conveyance.
Scroll down and find your country and click on it.
Scroll down, link at the bottom of this again, overly long post, and you'll find among all the graphs, one showing: Total Coronavirus Cases In ......... ---- whatever country you selected.
You can display the results by either the default, linear or logarithmic. Mouse over the sadly upwards arm of increasing cases, and you'll see the number for that particular day.
And to repeat: Social distancing is the only way to slow the spread until medical measures are discovered & available.
I whole heartily agree with your analysis. Our only hope is to self isolation and even then there are issues with people having to work in hospitals and etc. I am self isolating, but my wife works in hospital. If and I say if enough people self isolate, then after 14 day isolation period we should start to see number dropping, hopefully. Others contacting coronavirus and developing antibodies for resistance will help those of us that could not survive the coronavirus. The economic effect from the coronavirus will be hundreds of times worse than the actual coronavirus pandemic. This economic effect is what has slowed the world wide response to the coronavirus spread. Imagine if the Chinese had a crystal ball and could have isolated their country from all shipping and travel outside of the provincial epicenter. No country wanted to go through the economic contraction which is now taking place. Blessings.
I have business partners in Austin and am there frequently. I thought when they canceled South by Southwest it was an over reaction.
As it turns out, Austin had people in charge who knew what they were doing and took action at the time that was a very unpopular stance with many people in Austin when they canceled their big festival.
Just a couple weeks before, New Orleans went forward with Mardi Gras, a million people from all over the world crammed together in close quarters. I know, I was there, so I was as ignorant as our leaders were in Louisiana.
Now New Orleans is thought to be a covid hot spot while Austin appears to be in better shape.
You are right, it’s a math equation. No wonder I missed it early on, I always sucked at math and science in school.
Update from Austin. As of this morning 79 cases reported in Travis County. So the # of cases has doubled in 4 days. And that is with social isolation measures in place for the last few days. So at that rate of doubling we should be up to about 10,000 cases in 28 days. Stay tuned.
Sad sad sad ....... I just saw those new numbers for Travis County where the number of cases doubled in three days. If the daily blues and news shows, with their minions of talking heads want to do a public service, they all need to explain and illustrate the simple arithmetic behind the logic of self isolation.
In addition, I would add that whether or not one agrees with the numbers, If we would just self isolate for 6 - 8 weeks then the pandemic aspect would be reduced to a level that could be managed more rationally.
This measure of probability could be stated in a linear fashion.
During my 18 month treatment I had to travel often through Seattle and Portland with a compromised immune system. I practiced social distancing, moderate self isolation, and I made the additional hygiene precautions a habit. Throughout that time I did not contract a single immune aggravation, and I do not believe that I projected myself in any way that others were alarmed or even knew.
This is a very simple, inexpensive, and effective way to improve ones quality of life. It is not really that earth shattering when you just get into the habit.
With the impact that the world is experiencing at this time it seems very little to ask of ourselves to ramp up on self isolation, social distancing, and increased hygiene.
The later can be expressed in basic terms with whole numbers.
Reminds me of how my mother dealt with her sick children during those school years, and what she taught even when we weren't sick.
- Have little extra on hand.
- Keep things clean.
- Don't touch your face.
- Cover your mouth with a tissue when you cough,turn away from others.
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