5 ms·

So far.

• djoshea 6y ago
  Exactly. I believe the 60 million infections delta was estimated for April 6th (figure 4), so the counterfactual would be considerably worse as of today.
• sukilot 6y ago
  "So far" meaning "might save more later" or "only postponed, not prevented"?
  • oarabbus_ 6y ago
    The latter. That's always what "flattening the curve" has meant. The total area under the curve (i.e. total unique infected individuals) stays about the same.
    • thephyber 6y ago
      "Flattening the curve" is not the only possible outcome. A cure, an inoculation, or segmenting geographic regions until localized herd immunity (like New Zealand just did) are all examples of cutting the curve short.
      • oarabbus_ 6y ago
        Vaccines are far away from approval for widespread use, and New Zealand's situation as an island nation is not applicable to something like 98% of the World's population and quite frankly, irrelevant to the discussion.
  • LorenPechtel 6y ago
    By now we have learned that masks + distancing is enough to stop this (Drive R0 below 1, it will die out in time.) If we were serious about doing these things the cases--and deaths--would be prevented, not merely postponed.