This article was authored by Douglas Decicco of TranSeed Research, Lighthouse Point, Florida, and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
New reductions in the spread of coronavirus COVID-19 show possible efficacy of preventative measures in four European countries. We have now seen sufficient consecutive days of deviation from exponential growth in Italy, Germany, France, and Switzerland to say with reasonable statistical reliability that countries that value citizen rights of the west can adjust behavior sufficiently to depart from exponential growth without losing a percent of their population.
There are a few caveats.
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Deviation from exponential growth is only the first step. Reaching a linear growth is next. South Korea seems to have reached that portion of the curve.
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Reaching an R∅ of 1.0 or lower is next, and that requires much greater citizen commitment, whether reached by martial law, propaganda, or strong suggestion combined with shaming. Only China has reached that point.
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Then the value of R∅ must drop below further until the new cases disappear almost entirely, and that must happen before the virus mutates to a more virulent form.
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The U.S., Spain, Iran, and the U.K. have not seen statistically significant attenuation as of this writing.
We continue to suffer the effects of a serious global pandemic until a more adequate preventative behavior appears or a medical solution is developed and distributed. This pandemic does not appear to be anything like the Bubonic Plague (which wiped out over half the earth’s population), but we could suffer a great loss this year unless we increase the level of preventative measure.