Day 7 of Na/GloPoWriMo! The target objective?
“…a poem based on a news article.”
My subject today can be drawn on any number of articles plastered throughout our daily news periodicals to the point it cannot be escaped really. But, how do we then understand social distancing and its need in facing off and beating down this pandemic?
Mathing the COVID-19 Curve by Michael Doyle Part of math's power Is in mapping what's to come This is needed more than ever in this hour So much so, it makes my mind numb At first glance, COVID-19 Seems a bit overblown From the math seen It's easier to understand what's been shown The simplest of change comes in linear Adding a little each and every day But what of epidemics which are nonlinear It becomes clear that it's a troubling way Illness impacted by time Adds up to say maybe 100 a day Projecting as if it were a straight line Easy enough wouldn't you say? The illness coming is here and exponential The feedback loop keeps rapidly increasing Expanding in numbers of horrifying potential Instead of staying the same or decreasing We humans tend to see in the linear But epidemics are on a Logarithmic scale Applying a exponential model of the non-linear And is needed to understand our tale So how long before we're out of hospital beds? As the current data shows This thought is staggering to my head By mid-April, if constant, the beds will be on overflow Business as usual would be our very death And this is what we must heed and understand Trajectory rates vary but all take my breath Early action is needed throughout every land The earlier and more action that is taken The more lives we will save There comes a point where however shaken The susceptible in society will heal or go to grave This then is where we must be in supplication Even taking notice of the SIR curve If we as society are to have right application And in doing so steady our nerves In the beginning, all within are susceptible in population Though the infected will be in degrees of proportion And as a virus moves through the greater population There will be impactful removal of its own proportion How quickly this happens depends almost exclusively on contact How much, how often and is this a consistent contact rate The rate of healing (or death) will to have it's impact The rate of death or healing lessens infection sealing our fate The absence of any known vaccine spells it out That our resiliency is dependent on contact The base reproduction number removes all doubt That contact is the gasoline of this fire is simply fact Reducing the rate of contact lessens the infection And the outbreak is no longer quite as bad For now the 1918 Influenza is less worse than our current direction Medical care is crucial but the lack of common sense is sad We do have the ability to mitigate the contact rate And if together we practice good habit of basic sanitation We can flatten the curve and escape our worse fate The math proves that keeping calm and safe will save our nations (c) April 7, 2020 Michael Doyle All Rights Reserved
