Stay Home

I would like to mathematically demonstrate how important it is to stay home in times like these. My article will be a very short version of the cite below. Let’s start with a simple task:

Begin by asking how a rumor might spread among a population. Suppose on Day 1 a single person tells someone else a rumor, and suppose that on every subsequent day, each person who knows the rumor tells exactly one other person the rumor. Have students ponder, discuss and answer questions like: “How many days until 50 people have heard the rumor? 100 people? The whole school? The whole country?Exponential Outbreaks: The Mathematics of Epidemics

Before answering this question in general, let’s build up a few cases manually:

Day 0: 1 person knows
Day 1: 2 persons know because the 1 person that knew the rumor shared it with another
Day 2: 4 persons know because each of the 2 persons on day 1 shared the rumor to one person, that is 2 + 2
Day 3: 8, …

In general, for day we will have persons that know the rumor. This is called exponential growth. With time, it grows fast. Compare the different growths in the table to get a feel of how fast it grows.

Growth	Graph
Exponential
Linear
Exponential and linear (for comparison)

Now, what has a rumor got to do with viruses? The nature of the spread is very similar.

I found the VAX! game to be very educational. The game offers a tour that explains 4 basic components:

1. Networks – how people interact with each other
2. Epidemics – how viruses (or rumors) spread
3. Vaccines – find the best node in a network to vaccinate, to avoid outbreak
4. Quarantine – find the best node in a network to quarantine, to avoid further infections

After the tour, the game offers few difficulty modes. At first, you are given the option to vaccinate, and after you run out of vaccinations, you quarantine. The goal is to prevent infections of as many people as possible.

I encourage you to play the game to get a feel of it.

We are in a similar phase like the Quarantine phase in the game. The goal is to avoid further infections (or “flatten the curve”, as is mostly referred to as). This will help the healthcare system by not overloading it and allowing it to give proper care to those that need it.

I hope that you follow the recommendations and wash your hands.