Thread by @GosiaGasperoPhD

AB: Daily new cases grow exponentially since May 25.

Doubling time calculated for May 25 - Oct 15 is:
50 days (~7 weeks) (95% CI [45, 57])

It can flip to a faster rate at *any time*
It cannot slow down by itself.

Even at a current rate it's bad;
It means:
....
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It means, that even if the growth won't speed up, we will have:
500 daily new cases by Dec 03
1000 daily new cases by Jan 21

and so on..., doubling every 7 weeks.

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Persistent exponential growth means that the virus spread is not under control.

It's not a "Slow Burn"* or a "Dance", oscillating around some fixed number.
This is a constant growth.
Slowish, yet persistent.

(*Disclaimer: I'm against Slow Burn as a goal. I'm for #ZeroCovid)
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Dangers of relatively slow exp. growth

1) Cancer analogy:

It is better to have slow spreading cancer than fast spreading cancer.
But an *untreated* slow spreading cancer might be much worse than a fast spreading cancer for which one receives immediate therapy.

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Dangers of relatively slow exp. growth

2) The 'boiling frog fable'

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_f…

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Dangers of relatively slow exp. growth

3) It can flip to a much faster growth at any moment.

Theory: due to stochasticity, fat tails, high overdispersion (k)
Empiricism: It happened eg. in Ontario and Italy

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