Health and Healthcare Systems

Coronavirus: This chart shows why social distancing is so important

A plastic cover is seen between the Bank employees and the clients, as they wear protective face masks, following the outbreak of coronavirus, in Tehran, Iran March 17, 2020. WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Ali Khara via Coronavirus china virus health healthcare who world health organization disease deaths pandemic epidemic worries concerns Health virus contagious contagion viruses diseases disease lab laboratory doctor health dr nurse medical medicine drugs vaccines vaccinations inoculations technology testing test medicinal biotechnology biotech biology chemistry physics microscope research influenza flu cold common cold bug risk symptomes respiratory china iran italy europe asia america south america north washing hands wash hands coughs sneezes spread spreading precaution precautions health warning covid 19 cov SARS 2019ncov wuhan sarscow wuhanpneumonia  pneumonia outbreak patients unhealthy fatality mortality elderly old elder age serious death deathly deadly

Implementing preventative measures decreases transmission rates. Image: VIA REUTERS

Felix Richter
Data Journalist, Statista
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COVID-19

  • Experts agree that the COVID-19 outbreak cannot be stopped, but that it can be slowed through the implementation of social distancing measures.
  • Limiting human contact reduces transmission rates.
  • The sooner social distancing measures are introduced, the slower infection rates will be, preventing an unmanageable peak of cases.
  • Italy, Spain, France and Germany are seeing the number of cases double every three to four days.

The biggest problem many countries are currently facing with respect to the coronavirus is, strictly speaking, a mathematical one: exponential growth. Due to the fact that SARS-CoV-2 is a new type of coronavirus, there is no herd immunity, meaning that everybody is susceptible to infection and the virus is likely to spread exponentially.

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That is what we saw in China in early February and what we’re currently witnessing in large parts of Europe and in the United States. Countries such as Italy, Spain, France and Germany are seeing the number of cases double every three to four days, with the U.S. seeing even faster growth than that. If that rate of growth isn’t slowed down significantly, we’ll have tens if not hundreds of thousands of cases in many countries in a matter of a few weeks. That’s the problem when dealing with exponential growth: what starts off relatively slow, quickly snowballs and, before long, becomes unmanageable.

While experts are agreeing that the spread of COVID-19 cannot be stopped, it can be slowed down significantly by measures currently summed up under the term “social distancing”. By limiting human contact, we can reduce the transmission rate significantly, which in turn increases the time it takes for cases to double. Thanks to the nature of exponential functions, such measures can have a huge effect on the total number of cases after a given time.

Coronavirus china virus health healthcare who world health organization disease deaths pandemic epidemic worries concerns Health virus contagious contagion viruses diseases disease lab laboratory doctor health dr nurse medical medicine drugs vaccines vaccinations inoculations technology testing test medicinal biotechnology biotech biology chemistry physics microscope research influenza flu cold common cold bug risk symptomes respiratory china iran italy europe asia america south america north washing hands wash hands coughs sneezes spread spreading precaution precautions health warning covid 19 cov SARS 2019ncov wuhan sarscow wuhanpneumonia  pneumonia outbreak patients unhealthy fatality mortality elderly old elder age serious death deathly deadly
Why social distancing is so important Image: Statista

To illustrate the effectiveness of social distancing measures, let’s consider the following example. Starting off with one infected person, the virus spreads and the number of cases doubles every four days. 36 days into the outbreak, we have 512 cases and government A decides to do something. It implements social distancing measures that, for the sake of simplicity, immediately bring the doubling time from four days up to eight days. Meanwhile government B doesn’t think it’s necessary to do anything and lets the virus spread unchecked. Three and a half weeks later, 60 days into the outbreak, government A is dealing with 4,096 cases while government B is looking at more than 30,000 cases.

To further show how big of a factor time is when dealing with exponential growth, let’s bring government C in, which decides to implement the same measures as government A, only eight days later, once it has reached 2,000 cases. In this case, the measures are still highly effective, but the country still ends up with twice as many cases as country A, which simply acted quicker.

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The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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