What makes you think the number of infections should remain constant? Studies suggest up to 20% of Covid cases are asymptomatic - those people wouldn't know to

What makes you think the number of infections should remain constant? Studies suggest up to 20% of Covid cases are asymptomatic - those people wouldn't know to follow any guidance/regulations on isolation. The basic R0 is believed to be around 5.7, so even with precautions such as social distancing, masks, and hand washing (which won't be followed flawlessly), it's still trying to mitigate something outstandingly infectious. You need to bring the R0 to 1.0 for the number of cases to only increase at a constant rate, as for anything above 1 every 10 cases will lead to more than 10 new cases, which compounds as it spreads.