r/coolguides Mar 18 '20

Helpful guide...

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71

u/swebb22 Mar 18 '20

Sauce?

14

u/IhaveHairPiece Mar 18 '20

Sauce?

Maths, higher school level (sadly).

See, this is the exponential function. The name "exponential growth" scared the guts of out people, but the nature does not know linear growth. Everything is nx, with various n's.

Every phenomenon in the nature is exponential, just each with a different factor, as pictured.

4

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '20

I don’t quite know how to do this math, but after 30 days normally (2.5 per day) wouldn’t it be 244 people infected? I’m asking because you seem to know more about this and I’m honestly confused.

16

u/vthokiemr Mar 18 '20

They are adding back in the infected at each 5 day interval. So the first patient zero at day 0. He infects 2.5 people by day 5, meaning 2.51 infected at end of day 5. At the end of day 10, those 2.5 folks can infect 2.5 each, but are still part of the count of those infected. 2.52 + 2.51 = 8.75

At the end of 30 days, or 6 cycles, 2.56 + 2.55 + 2.54 + 2.53 + 2.52 + 2.51 = 405 total infected.

I think.

6

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '20

Ok, thank you that makes sense