Where would you rather be? The Linear Plot suggests Region A is in worse shape. But, the Log Plot shows that Region B is likely to soon become much worse than Region A.

The pandemic’s exponential growth rate is shown as the slope of the curve in the Log Plot. The Log Plot slope of Region A is improving and Region B is getting worse. That tells you Region B is in more trouble.

To help see the change in the slope, I extrapolate a dashed line based on the past seven days and a dotted line based on the past 14 days. Region A shows improving slope because the dashed line lies below the dotted line. Region B shows the reverse and will have everyone infected unless it can bend the curve down like Region A.

You can see this numerically in the number of days to double. Increasing the days-to-double is the same as decreasing the slope of the curve in the Log Plot.

Published by Brent Gregory

I make software for designing computer guts.

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