Why Iran and Italy and not Thailand and the Philipines?
I think it’s too soon to say “not Thailand and the Philippines”; three days ago there were 10 reported cases in the Philippines, then 33, then 49. Italy’s trend at a comparable level was steeper--3 then 9 then 76--and then here we are, two and a half weeks later.
As for “why Italy and Iran first”, there’s both the possibility of “lower spread rate” and the possibility of “weird founder effects.” If a careless Italian healthcare worker made a mistake three weeks ago, and a careless Philippine healthcare worker made a mistake one week ago, we’d see two additional weeks of growth in the Italian numbers and not the Philippine numbers.
The rate of change being exponential is an extremely important point. The original rate of spread in Wuhan was a doubling every 2 days. If we set another area follows the same rate, then the difference between 32 cases and 4096 cases is just waiting 2 weeks.
I think it’s too soon to say “not Thailand and the Philippines”; three days ago there were 10 reported cases in the Philippines, then 33, then 49. Italy’s trend at a comparable level was steeper--3 then 9 then 76--and then here we are, two and a half weeks later.
As for “why Italy and Iran first”, there’s both the possibility of “lower spread rate” and the possibility of “weird founder effects.” If a careless Italian healthcare worker made a mistake three weeks ago, and a careless Philippine healthcare worker made a mistake one week ago, we’d see two additional weeks of growth in the Italian numbers and not the Philippine numbers.
The rate of change being exponential is an extremely important point. The original rate of spread in Wuhan was a doubling every 2 days. If we set another area follows the same rate, then the difference between 32 cases and 4096 cases is just waiting 2 weeks.