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| Exponential growth bias: The numerical error behind Covid-19 |
| 2020-08-14 |
| [BBC] A simple mathematical mistake may explain why many people underestimate the dangers of coronavirus, shunning social distancing, masks and hand-washing. Imagine you are offered a deal with your bank, where your money doubles every three days. If you invest just $1 today, roughly how long will it take for you to become a millionaire? Would it be a year? Six months? 100 days? The precise answer is 60 days from your initial investment, when your balance would be exactly $1,048,576. Within a further 30 days, you’d have earnt more than a billion. And by the end of the year, you’d have more than $1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 – an “undecillion” dollars. If your estimates were way out, you are not alone. Many people consistently underestimate how fast the value increases – a mistake known as the “exponential growth bias” – and while it may seem abstract, it may have had profound consequences for people’s behaviour this year. A spate of studies has shown that people who are susceptible to the exponential growth bias are less concerned about Covid-19’s spread, and less likely to endorse measures like social distancing, hand washing or mask wearing. In other words, this simple mathematical error could be costing lives – meaning that the correction of the bias should be a priority as we attempt to flatten curves and avoid second waves of the pandemic around the world. |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #19 because once numbers of infected people reach catastrophic levels, people will socially distance without being told so, avoid shops and restaurants etc. That all started before it was mandated in my part of the country, once reports of the situation in Italy started to spread. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2020-08-14 23:42 |
| #18 Someone should paid some of those college students willing to risk getting the virus at Virus parties and spring break to be part in tests to see how infection it is for there age group. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2020-08-14 23:24 |
| #17 It's rather obvious that in real life the exponential growth comes to an end, but not before 50-70% of people are infected. If you do nothing, mandate nothing, the economic disaster kicks in a bit later, because once numbers of infected people reach catastrophic levels, people will socially distance without being told so, avoid shops and restaurants etc. And since this is a new virus we don't know what damage it can do and could do in the future. |
| Posted by: European Conservative 2020-08-14 23:06 |
| #16 750,000 dead is a lie. Is an approximation. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2020-08-14 22:22 |
| #15 The only creationist is Grom who thinks you could infect more people in an area than live there. In the real world (not his badly programmed spreadsheets, where he doesnt really understand the maths) all exponents are bounded and the more expansion the more it's bounded. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2020-08-14 15:36 |
| #14 Compound interest. My geometry teacher in 1965 read the class the story of John Jones Dollar. Anybody else remember reading that story of how compound interest saved universal socialism? |
| Posted by: Bobby 2020-08-14 15:21 |
| #13 Fascinating, #12. I got September3by averaging the death toll over the last 30 days (1,020) and dividing that into 189k-167,761=21 days from now. Now that's 'science' you can reproduce! Assuming the average continues for the next 21 days. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2020-08-14 15:09 |
| #10 ^I was talking about specific equation, Glen. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru PB 2020-08-14 11:25 |
| #9 "when 150 million Americans will become infected, the infection rate will start going down?" Of course. That which cannot continue indefinitely will not. In fact, it looks like only about 70 million will ever get infected, for whatever reason. Seems like around 1.5 million will probably die. It will take several years. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2020-08-14 11:17 |
| #8 Won't argue with you any more than I'd argue with a creationist. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-08-14 04:36 |
| #7 You called me a liar for stating the fact that since July 5 times more have died from Flu. If there's a liar it's the poster called Grom hiding from reality. The population lockdown (as opposed to protecting the vulnerable 0.05%) was OBVIOUSLY a terrible mistake. Continuing it compounds the disaster. Excess mortality is under average! End the disaster caused by government over-reaction. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2020-08-14 04:20 |
| #6 750,000 dead is a lie. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-08-14 03:30 |
| #5 |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2020-08-14 03:21 |
| #4 ^So when 150 million Americans will become infected, the infection rate will start going down? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-08-14 03:00 |
| #3 But it's not completely exponential it's more of a logistic map Remember X(n+1) = RXn(1-Xn) because as more people catch it, it's harder to spread. This function is actually chaotic (in parts). BBC drivel here A simple mathematical mistake may explain why many people underestimate the dangers of coronavirus, shunning social distancing, masks and hand-washing. So why are we not all trillionaires? Because the growth rate of an exponential function HAS to fall as it's change spreads! This article is so stupid only an academic would think its useful. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2020-08-14 02:43 |
| #2 Except 750000 dead. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-08-14 02:40 |
| #1 Where do you get an R0 of >1? There are no hard and fast FACTS to back that up. |
| Posted by: Marilyn Tojo7566 2020-08-14 01:11 |