Quote Originally Posted by MAD_MAGPIE View Post

That’s why it’s got to be slowed down quickly. People who have disobeyed advice just don’t seem to realise how quickly it spreads.
I read an article other day about people finding it difficult to understand the danger posed by the virus because they don't understand exponential growth. It gave the example of a ancient tale about a foolish ruler who agreed to give one grain of rice on one square of a chess board, two on the next, and agreed to double it for each of the 62 squares left on the chess board. Needless to say the final amount of rice bankrupted him.

I think I heard the CMO say that the figures for COVID19 double roughly every 5 days. That doesn't mean much in the beginning - 2 deaths on Monday becomes 4 deaths on Friday - hardly a national emergency.

But think of the Italian figures before the lockdown started to kick in. 800 deaths per day. Without a full lockdown you'd be looking at that doubling twice every ten days, so in 20 days (3 weeks) you've got 12,000 deaths per DAY to deal with. Time really is of the essence in these cases and a few days here or there can make a massive difference.