Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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I remember when I started reading Japanese, there was a story where a greedy local lord, eager to prove his superiority, challenged a wise man to come and play him in a game of shogi, with the promise that if the wise man won the lord would grant him his wish. The wise man won, to the lord's shock, and holding true to his promise the lord asked him what he wanted. The wise man said that on the first day he wanted just a single grain of rice, then on the next day he would get twice that much bringing it to 2, and then twice that much on the day after, and so on. He wanted this process to continue for 30 days in total. The lord was surprised by this request, and thought the wise man was a fool. He agreed to the wise man's request.

And so on the first day, the wise man got his single grain of rice, and the local lord thought this was easy peasy. Then the next day, he gave the wise man 2 grains of rice. On day 9, he got 256 grains of rice. On day 15, he got 16,384 grains of rice, and it was around this time that the lord's men started noticing that the bags they were giving to the wise man were getting a little heavy. On day 25, they had to give the wise man 16,777,216 grains of rice, and they were having to use several chariots to transport it. Then the day after that, it was 33,554,432 grains of rice. On day 27, it was 67,108,864 grains. On day 28, it was 134,217,728 grains of rice. On day 29, it was 268,435,456 grains of rice. And on the final day, it was 536,870,912 grains of rice. "I'm ruined!" the local lord cried out, and he was a lot poorer for the whole arrangement.

I think this story has a lesson for us in our current situation. Can you see the lesson, Ezra?

With 1,843 out of 25 million people contracting it in 54 days, the odds of Pepe catching it are higher than him getting hit by a bus while sitting in his living room.

No because it has been going on over 100 days the number of cases and is not remotely close to the factor given in that parable. Therefore it does not apply.

I prefer to stick with what has actually transpaired rather than litterally going by fairytales.

You're being unfair to me, here. The purpose of the story was only to show how exponential growth can surprise people, not to literally argue that the cases double every day. And I'm sure you understood that, but because of our past history here, you have a problem with me, so you interpret my arguments in a way to put them in the worst light possible.

If we want to play games where we knock down strawmen and talk past each other, I can do that, too. Here's an example: Apparently, Ezra thinks that because the death toll is now only100, it can never reach 10,000 or 100,000. He doesn't seem to understand that the situation is evolving and cases are currently growing exponentially.

You are probably going to protest that this is unfair, but I just wanted you to know how it feels to have your argument misrepresented, like you did just now with me.