Flatten the curve

Mindy D · ‎05-23-2010

"The intention of early containment

A lower peak of the outbreak allows the healthcare system to provide care for more people

The total mortality of an epidemic can be high even if the symptoms for the vast majority are mild. While it might not seem intuitive, it is possible for the following two things to be true at the same time:

For the majority of people, symptoms are mild and in some cases similar to the common flu.
An epidemic of the same disease can cause a very high number of deaths.

As we discuss here, the symptoms of COVID-19 can be very severe in many cases. Many of these patients require treatment in intensive care units (ICUs). The WHO reports that “about a quarter of severe and critical cases require mechanical ventilation.”18

‘Flattening the curve’

This is why early counter measures are important in an epidemic. Their intention is to lower the rate of infection so that the epidemic is spread out over time such that the peak demand on the healthcare system is lower.

Containment measures are intended to avoid an outbreak trajectory in which a large number of people get sick at the same time. This is what the visualization shows.

This is the reason that limiting the magnitude of peak incidence of an outbreak is important. Health systems can care for more patients across an outbreak when the number of cases is spread out over a long period rather than condensed in a very short period.

What such counter measures to the pandemic attempt to avoid is that the number of patients at one point in time is so large that health systems fail to provide the required care for some patients19"

Source is OurWorldinData.org. and is based on information from the CDC. According to this organization, it works to provide research and data against the world's largest problems.

1Snickers · ‎03-19-2016

@Mindy D Thank you! That's why I'm staying home!

😷

on the bay · ‎03-09-2010

@Mindy D -

Thank you! I wish everyone would understand this!

"If you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn things you never knew. Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains? can you paint with all the colors of the wind?"