One of the only good things to come out of this pandemic is the increased emphasis on S-Curves. Models tend to use the predictive power of exponential curves to

One of the only good things to come out of this pandemic is the increased emphasis on S-Curves. Models tend to use the predictive power of exponential curves to estimate the steep part of the S-Curve but these predictions are short term and are best applied to planning scenarios. What is missing from this article is the relationship between S-Curves and Bell Curves. We can use the Rules of Thumb associated with the Normal Distribution to think about peak growth rate and standard deviations. The health data.org curve fitting is a decent Fermi Estimate based on observed data. Models are always wrong but sometimes they are useful and I hope we start to discuss the underlying key assumptions used in each case rather than focusing on their imperfect predictive power.