From ZME Science:
There is no denying it: Italy is not an unfortunate exception. Soon enough, most countries will face a similar struggle.
The US now has the largest growth rate of COVID-19 cases in the world, doubling approximately every 2 days. What initially seemed to be a relatively slow growth rate was, apparently, directed only by a lack of tests — as soon as people were getting tested, the number of cases surged. It is becoming clear that sooner rather than later, the US will face a similar strain to Italy’s — and even Italy has not seen the peak of the outbreak.
The simple chart above shows that the rate of infection in the US is accelerating much faster than the one in Italy.
Of course, there is an argument to be made — first, about the number of asymptomatic cases. We know that a number of cases are asymptomatic and people might not even know they have the disease at all. We don’t know how many there are, but this is an important uncertainty. Then, there’s a discussion about the number of tests — most countries are only testing people who are already sick, but outside of Asia, mass testing has not really been deployed.
These are both serious sources of uncertainty, and there are others as well. But even so, there is nothing to suggest that Italy is the worst-case scenario.
No comments:
Post a Comment