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> I wonder if this is simply because there is a mismatch between what people are being told and what people are observing with their own eyes. when in doubt, "
by leetcrew 6y ago
> I wonder if this is simply because there is a mismatch between what people are being told and what people are observing with their own eyes.
when in doubt, "humans don't intuitively understand exponential growth" is often a good guess. to the average person, "barely under control" and "everything is fine" look very similar and the precautions taken in the former seem pretty silly. by the time an outbreak is directly observable in your day-to-day life, things have already gone sideways.
- umanwizard 6y agoYour parent comment was talking about how mild the virus is for most people who get it, not about how many cases there are. So I don’t think the growth rate is relevant.
- nobody9999 6y ago>Your parent comment was talking about how mild the virus is for most people who get it, not about how many cases there are. So I don’t think the growth rate is relevant. An interesting point. However, I'd posit that the growth rate is of paramount importance -- not because many will have mild symptoms, but because a small portion of those who contract COVID-19 will die or have serious long-term effects. As the number of cases grow, the number of folks who die/suffer serious long-term effects will grow along with them.
- umanwizard 6y agoYes, but the same is true of literally every common disease.
- PeterisP 6y agoLiterally every other common disease is either saturated to a somewhat stable level, or eliminated or on the way there because of some vaccine. Sadly, there are some countries where HIV is still rapidly expanding, but in aggregate even that is shrinking. Currently covid-19 is the only epidemic that's large but still actively growing worldwide, it's the only one where we actually would see exponential growth if we do nothing.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]