Let me give you a mathematical explanation to churn a few brain cycles on... since you like to think in thermodynamic outcomes instead of kinetic ones.
An partial error in judgement ? There isn't "a" choice to be made. One must always be willing, and be deliberate in pursuing, multiple approaches to understanding... anything. That also requires sustaining an ability to hold conflicting ideas in your head at the same time... without allowing that conflict to generate noise that interferes either with your perception, or your ability to manage the "mixing" as you tinker with interactions between things in your head ? You have the ability to think. You also have the ability to control how you think. And to both develop your ability deliberately, and manage that effort for purpose ?
The curve is the curve. Flattening the curve,,, does not change what is under it. Let me repeat that. Flattening the curve,,, does not change what is under it.
That's incorrect. You are visualizing a curve as bounding a static bit of real estate beneath it... so then altering the shape of the curve above that real estate... does not alter the real estate. But notice... your assumption of a static real occupancy of that space below the curve... is merely a choice to adopt an over-simplification for convenience. It is a contrivance... which you adopt as a limit to your perception, only in order to enable focusing on the construction of the curve to the exclusion of else. The real estate bounded by the curve... is itself dynamic... and the dynamic occurring below the curve... is "largely" independent of the function of the curve... which is not to say "wholly".
In real terms: The lid on your yogurt container... does not change the yogurt... but it is in fact designed to facilitate the yogurt not changing in response to the dynamic it would without the lid. Alter the curve of the lid... and the yogurt will follow a different trajectory... speeding it along toward your trashcan.
Flattening the curve has two functions... both of which are intrinsically dynamic.
The first function is the critical element in avoiding the ICU capactiy being inundated. The fork occurs at the capacity limits... with two different dynamics resulting, depending on the fork.
The second function is the non-critical element in result of success in flattening the curve as preventing the ICU's being overwhelmed...
And that function resulting from "we're not dead yet" is its own dynamic... which you might note as the ecosystem of coronavirus response efforts having been granted "a pass" on the impact of the giant asteroid of ICUs being overwhelmed.
So, really... that second dynamic boils down to "buying time"... but the shape of the curve that bought you that sufficiency in an extension of time to allow you to complete the test... doesn't control how well you do in completing the test with the grant of additional time.
Not the first time in this crisis that "buying time" has been the object of choices. But, in the first instance, having slowed transmission out of China... didn't really buy much... not as a function of the curve... but as a function of the choices made in relation to the action (or not) of those involved in the dynamic below the curve.
Flattening the curve bought time...
What are you going to do with it ? |
