Mate, you can relax a little (not a lot but some). What you are looking at is a graph of exponential growth. What you need to understand is that depending on the scale of the x and y axis, EVERY exponential graph looks the same, it is the nature of exponential growth. Its a mathematical phenomenon. You will note that the x axis of both graphs is similar but the y axis is wildly different. Depending on what scale you have on that graph, any exponential graph can be identical.
I have been tracking this mathematically for two weeks and it IS growing exponentially unfortunately ( the peak is getting near when the exponential growth is broken) but not all exponential growth is the same. Exponential growth simply means that each data is multiplied by the same each time and it therefore grows exponentially (not linear). Ours is currently growing at an exponential rate of between 1.2 - 1.25 per day. Italy was way more.
This is a better graph to understand is on this page https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/covid19-coronavirus-countries-infection-trajectory/ which enables you to track each country over time. Today is our 10th day since having 100 people and we have 876 confirmed cases. 10 days after 100 cases, Italy had 5202 cases. Its not even close.
I could have posted that, but it is a bit hard for many to read, plus because of the schedule of outbreaks and that it does not take the very much differing travel and/or internal restriction parameters for the individual countries, along with the more affected regions within them into account, so as such, along with the testing regimes, I find it to be an inaccurate comparison.
If the parameters were remotely even, then I would definitely go with that one, but on the basis that it is far from that, I find it just as, if not more misleading than the others that are simply date based with an even scale.
I expect that time with it's education from other's experience, along with our hospital system, will allow us to avert such horrendous death percentages, but current lack of restriction will have our confirmed case numbers ballooning similarly in the coming weeks. Either way, we will soon find out who is closer to the mark and can revisit it then.
Edit; I truly hope that we can keep cases under 10k in the next fortnight and having read your subsequent post, I also noticed that many seriously affected nations were going on a downward trajectory and Australia is pretty well constant. Would love a slide over it showing when restrictions were brought in, so that I could also evaluate on that basis.
To keep numbers low in the coming fortnight, wouldn't we have to be undertaking effective isolation measures when it's contagious which is now, which of course we aren't.
So many people don't see it, should the government try to scare them into being more careful? The perception seems to be that only the older people will die, so those that aren't in that category don't care. Maybe let them know younger people die too. (Though I don't know if that's true?)
The problem is in my opinion is the fact they are only testing people who have had direct contact THAT THEY KNOW of with coronavirus
The problem is the numbers could be far , far worse and we wouldn't know
The reason for lack of testing is the scarcity of the testing kits, this was unavoidable. Thankfully some Australian labs have developed alternative testing processes!
Not arguing that ...saying that for all we know their could be 2000 cases with CV in Australia ...and we wouldn't have a clue
I have done a lot of reading about this issue, the countries with the best results are the countries that are testing a lot. South Korea is doing a great job in that regard, but you need the resources to do it. Australia has used its scientist to develop new testing practises that use different components to what every other country is scrambling to source, hopefully that will allow us to upscale production.
The reason South Korea is doing so well is they then doggedly track down every contact with that infection and break the chain of transmission. Do we as a country have the resources to do that, our population is very spread out, which can be a hinderance in tracing contacts but a benefit in social distancing!
Most experts now believe that Covid 19 is too far gone to be eradicated without a vaccine, which means a lockdown could be required until a vaccine is created and are moving to a strategy of allowing the community to slowly build up an immunity to the disease, the Netherlands have been very public about this strategy with the UK also announcing it but backtracking after criticism.
More experts are starting to move to the idea of educating the community and placing some restrictions on the populace but to engage the people in the fight against this to create a more manageable scenario of multiple smaller peaks instead of the one big peak that has hit Italy, this strategy involves restrictions that can be tighten or relax based on the numbers at any specific time because it appears this disease will not be going away. Lockdowns worked in China because of the control they have over the populace, but what happens when the lockdown is removed is the question? Do numbers start rising again and if they do does China go into a second lockdown? this time indefinitely and maybe for longer than a year!
