What Will America Do When the Parade of Coffins Grows Long? (A Look at the Effects of Exponential Growth)

Exponential growth (red) vs. linear growth (blue). Source.

by Thomas Neuburger

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”
—Al Bartlett (quoted here)

Exponential growth occurs when a number (interest on a loan, for example, or the death rate from a disease) grows or decays at a rate proportional to its current value instead of growing by a constant number. In exponential growth, as a number gets larger the amount by which it grows gets larger as well. So if a value doubles every day, to pick just one example, a number that starts small can become very large very quickly, in less than a month in fact.

A form of exponential growth occurs with compound interest, a situation in which the interest on a loan is added back into the principal for the next calculation of interest, so that the borrower ends up paying interest on the interest. If nothing is repaid on such a loan, the amount owed can reach astronomical proportions and the amount of the original principal is dwarfed by the accumulated owed interest.

Or consider a disease whose death rate doubles every week. If in week one if there is just one death, there will be two deaths in week two, four in week three, eight in week four, and so on. In just eight weeks, the death rate will be over 100 per week and rising. Three weeks later, the death rate will be over 1000 per week ... and still rising.

Left alone, cancer cells often increase at an exponential rate. Exponential curves tend to look like a hockey stick (see the example at the top), with a slow flat part followed by a sudden rise that seemingly never stops.

The Growth Rate of Covid-19 U.S. Cases and Deaths Is Exponential

Now consider the growth rate of confirmed Covid-19 cases and deaths in the U.S. Both are charted below. The source for each is this great thread by David Windt, which he updates daily.

Confirmed Covid-19 cases in the U.S. as of March 29, 2020

Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. as of March 29, 2020

The top chart shows confirmed Covid-19 cases in the U.S. (red dots). Notice that the vertical space between the red dots is clearly increasing. Even though the number of active cases isn't great in most neighborhoods — "hotspots" like those in New York City or the state of Washington are still the exception — the national total is growing alarmingly fast.

Unless things drastically change — unless real South Korea-style prevention is put in place, a cure is developed and made available, or a vaccine is universally deployed — the U.S. will see one million confirmed cases by April 7. That's just days away.

Now note the steepness of the curve and imagine the number of cases the U.S. will see on April 20, the last date on the chart. Hint: The next "bump" up, the next major line to cross on the smaller logarithmic chart (which makes the curve look linear), is 10,000,000 — ten million people will have gotten the disease by then. And the line after that, which will be reached on May 2, is 100,000,000, almost a third of the country.

The number of deaths, shown in the second chart, is growing at the same inexorable rate. The projection of 1,000 deaths per day by April 1 becomes 2,000 deaths per day by April 3, just two days later.

If this continues, today's total of 2,000 U.S. deaths will become 10,000 U.S. deaths by April 3, at which point the blue line exits the top of the chart. Based on the logarithmic graph inserted into the chart, the projected total U.S. deaths will reach 100,000 on April 13, just ten days later.

As one Twitter user put it on March 28, "The first US death from the coronavirus was February 29. The 1000th death was Thursday. The 2000th death was today [Saturday]." This is the power of exponential growth.

It Doesn't Have to Be This Way

None of this growth is predicted; it's merely projected based on what's gone before. Yet there's no question the pandemic is spreading exponentially in the U.S.

We could do much to mitigate this growth. We could imitate the South Koreans, for example, and institute a very strict regimen of testing + social distancing. One of our researchers could find a cure — there's some promising news on this front (along with some disturbing neoliberal attempts, since rescinded under public pressure, to profit from it). And at some point a vaccine will be developed.

But in the absence of effective policies and leadership — and the U.S. is experiencing a great lack of leadership with no end of that lack in sight — this disease could well spread unchecked for at least the near future.

Exponential Growth of COVID-19 Cases and Deaths Will Upend the U.S. Election

So, what does the near future look like? For now most Americans are hunkering down to wait it out. Except for those living in hotspots, most of us don't see cases and most don't see new deaths. Put simply, from a medical standpoint this pandemic, for most of us, is more about the news and the warnings and less about living with the visibly sick and dying.

That's not true economically, however, where effects are felt nationally and now. Here's the chart of new unemployment claims for the week ending March 21:

The spike in new claims dwarfs by an order of magnitude every spike in new claims since the late 1960s. In addition, for many workers lose of employment also means loss of employer-supplied health care — during a pandemic.

The near future holds no good news. Not only will unemployment continue to spike upward — reaching as high as 30% by some estimates — but the disease itself will come to every neighborhood, disrupting most lives in a way unfelt today.

If the exponential projections hold and one-third of the country has contracted Covid-19 by early May, if we've seen 100,000 deaths or more by mid-April evictions continue to rise and loan defaults skyrocket (another exponential curve), the nation will panic and search in desperation for a leader who can actually "save" it.

Will Donald Trump fill that need? It's possible, but it's also possible he'll be swept up in the blame, as more and more of his missteps are laid at his feet. Will the evicted hold him blameless if he doesn't protect him now, on the day they land on the street with all their belongings? Will the bankrupt put on their MAGA hats if he doesn't make them whole instead of enriching the swamp creatures, bankers and CEOs he actually serves?

Will Joe Biden and the neoliberal Democratic Party survive unscathed if the nation is drowning in debt and disease and they offer just crumbs when long-term money, meals and shelter are needed instead?

The person who gives a drowning man a rope is a savior. The one who withholds it ... isn't. The ranks of the nation's leaders are stuffed with people who really want to withhold that rope. These leaders live by constraining the wealth of the people and giving what's saved to themselves. They make their living from it, they tell tales to their friends about how they got away with another one, they encourage each other to keep the cruel project on track.

They haven't changed either their stripes or their tune. The latest bailout package is "a robbery in progress" as one analyst put it, and people for whom a single $1200 (means-tested) check will not be nearly enough, will notice and care.

As more and more voters begin to drown, go down for the third and last time, or watch as their friends and family falter and die ... as they witness the parade of coffins, born on the shoulders of the poor, grow longer each day ... the rebellion against the entire leadership class will grow as well, perhaps even exponentially.

At that point, it's a whole new ball game. Who will come out the winner? That's impossible to predict at this point — though Bernie Sanders may find that a lot more "back to normal" moms are seeing the value of political revolution after all.

Needless to say though, more than one outcome is possible, including the one with tanks. Stay tuned. We may know what's coming next in just a few weeks.