But not in the US. 
The total number of cases would likely eventually be the same, just spread out over a longer period of time. The only benefit from flattening the curve is to prevent medical facility overload, thereby reducing deaths. The rate of new infections would be smaller by flattening the curve, but not likely the total eventual cumulative cases.
But yes, I agree that there would be far less panic if the rate of new infections were to be lowered by “flattening the curve”. I guess we just have to be clear about whether we’re talking about the cumulative (total) number of cases or the rate of new cases.
Yes, that’s clear.
The rate of new cases is all that matters at this point
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Honkman…thank you for the thoughful reply and given your background I trust it 
There are to bio-tech firms here in Sorrento Valley that have sequenced the virus and are working on vaccines, but do not expect them to be available for at least a year, and that would be fast-tracking them.
I heard from a friend this afternoon that some researchers are actually looking at a vaccine developed by Nils Pedersen’s team at the UC Davis Vet School to deal with FIP, Feline Infectious Peritonitius, which is a (usually fatal to cats) coronavirus. Apparently the feline FIP vaccine has has a pretty good success rate with cats and researchers are trying to determine if they can use any of the components from the FIP vaccine in the development of a COVID-19 vaccine. Sounds like kind of a wild idea to me but an interesting anecdote 
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Let’s hope out of the many approaches something will help everybody within the next 12 months (and let’s assume that here in the US it will be available to everybody without costs (it’s crazy to hear some politicians talking about industry defining the price for such vaccines) - normally I am overall quite optimistic about many things in life but Covid-19 makes me surprisingly nervous.
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If there are actually 100K people in Ohio that have The Virus, the vast majority of them must be experiencing mild or no symptoms.
And of course, that’s exactly why it can spread so easily.
We’re not testing (at all, basically, in the US), but people that are truly sick feel sick, look sick, and act sick. They should stay at home and avoid spreading it to others. As usual.
Hopefully all of them are staying home, just like they should if they have a cold. Or the flu, mumps, whooping cough, measles, chicken pox, etc. I’ve yet to see someone in a public place that actually looks like they’re sick.
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Another comment on this plot. I wish it were normalized by showing the number of cases per 100,000, as we were talking about earlier.
There are a lot of people in China (1.4 billion), so of course the total numbers are large. There aren’t as many people in Hong Kong (7.2 million), so of course the total numbers are lower. But on a “per 100,000” population basis, things might be quite different-looking.
Even if done regionally rather than nationally, that would be easier to interpret.
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And OK, still one more thing. Preparing for the future, as I hope we’ll start to do once again beginning next year, perhaps the MASH-type model really is an option. In truth, I would think that at best the UN would maintain the capacity for this sort of massive rapid MASH-type response to any medical transient, available to any country on Earth with urgent need, member or not, on a moment’s notice.
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The problem is we are not even testing sick people. In addition with Covid-19 you can be easily infectious to others without showing any symptoms. That’s why it is so critical to test much, much, much more aggressive the different layers of known carriers including those who show no signs.
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Where are all the g-d damn test kits? I read an article the other day about issues with non FDA approved test kits in Seattle.
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A friend sent me this article about COVID-19 last night. I’m not sure if English is the first language or not for the author as I thought some of the sentence struture was a bit odd at times and some of his explanations aren’t quite a clear as I think he thinks they were. Otherwise, the article has a number of charts, graphs and formulas that all the mathematically minded people on this thread might be interested in (Doc, I’m looking at you buddie 
)
That summary is very good and shows the importance of testing and social distancing which has to start now. Twitter is also very good as there is (not only about Covid-19) a Bio-Twitter “universe” where a lot of experts give good thoughts - LizSpecht (has a very good summary of what might happen to the US health care system), Andybiotech and EricTopol are good starting point but there are many more (and obviously much junk and misinformation)
Best way to social distance, wear a mask. I did last nite and people were visibly avoiding me yesterday in NYC
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The baseline starts with the 100th case, so the total population is irrelevant. Without effective measures to slow transmission, infections spread at about 33% a day. It doesn’t matter whether the hot spots where transmission is occurring are in a small country or a large one.
It’s always important to find out what somebody@anywhere.com has to say. You might also want to read his articles “How to Write a Funny Speech,” “What The Rise of Skywalker Can Teach about Storytelling,” and “What I Learned Building a Horoscope That Blew Up on Facebook.”
Seattle is finally getting up to speed.
I agree. I was just saying that I hope all who do feel sick are staying home and that I haven’t seen any sick-looking people in public. But yes, asymptomatic people with the virus are out there, and that’s the biggest risk. For all we know, you and I have had it, never having felt or shown any symptoms. Absent widespread testing, how could we know?
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