Interactive chart shows coronavirus exponential growth (and countries that have dropped out of exponential growth trap)


A new interactive chart of confirmed cases of COVID-19 shows the path of exponential growth and highlights the countries that have beaten the “growth trap.”

Henry Reich and Aatish Bhatia, both physicists, worked together to create the graph. Reich created a minutephysics video to explain the data. The data was provided by Johns Hopkins University.

When the data is plotted in this visualization, it makes it easier to see the exponential growth as a straight line moving upward. Most countries follow a similar path of growth.

The chart shows the sharp decline in China and South Korea where exponential growth has decreased.

“Exactly when exponential growth ends is important, because it hugely determines how many people fall ill. Yet, so little reporting focuses at all on whether exponential growth is ending,” Reich said in the video.

“In nearly every country so far, the number of cases have grown at the same rate… until it doesn’t. And that’s what I feel like is missing from so much COVID-19 coverage: a sense of whether or not we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Are we still on the rocketship of contagion, like the US? Or have we managed to hit the emergency eject button, like China? And this graph shows us that. It gives us some sense of what is actually happening in these uncertain times.”

-Henry Reich

In Washington, White House officials are relying on statistical models to help predict the impact of the coronavirus outbreak and try to protect as many people as possible. The public could get its first close look at the Trump administration’s own projections Tuesday at the daily briefing.




















The Associated press contributed to this report.



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