There is simulation which shows how COVID-19 viruses (and viruses which spread through droplets in general) spread. It's an interesting video (a must-watch, in facz) since there are multiple simulations (including radius of infections, spread of infections, multiple communities, travelling etc.). All of these examples show why social distancing and quarantines are necessary and why we shouldn't neglect them (and also why it's especially stupid to unnecesserily travel between communities or heck, just go to a central meeting point).
Even Boris Johnson, who first preferred to go the quick route (infect everyone), realised that the UK or at least their healthcare would have collapsed.
I also have look at John Hopkins University's data about COVID-19 cases but let's talk about maths: It isn't completely true that virus spread exponentially but they start as one. In fact, the full graph (i.e. from beginning to end) is a logistical curve which is a transformed arctangent function. So far, only China, where the epidemic initially started, and South Korea, which also has the virus under control, have such a curve but all other countries don't.
In Germany, the sitution still is under control. While we have the fifth most cases world wide and third most cases in Europe, we still have a relatively small death toll (13 infected + recovered people per dead person). As such, it is one of the few European countries which can actually take off some load of other countries, especially Italy.
Originally posted by kamekku14
The comparison isn't completely fair since the US is a much more populous country than... every individual European country. For example, Italy and France have got together less people than the US but more cases.
However, the US is still at the beginning of the epidemic since there more dead people than those who have recovered. It doesn't help that the US, while less densely populated than Europe in general, it has got more dense cities (e.g. New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc.) so the virus has got a much easier time to spread there.
What is a problem is that everyone wants to go back to business after Eastern. It's already a bad idea for Europe (maximally Italy since they have been under quarantine for longer) but it's even scarier for the US since they are at the aforementioned beginning of the pandemic.
Originally posted by PMHWell I think masks DO protect you from the virus. Do you know why there are so many cases in Europe and in US? The reason is people don't wear masks and they think masks are unnecessary. And I know that wearing mask doesn't mean that you're immune to the virus, but it's a good thing to do. Also, I think Europeans and Americans discriminate mask so they don't wear it.
The actual problem is that we humans like to touch our faces (so much for face masks being a "better protection" than washing your hands) and people tend to cough and sneezeing into their hands instead of elbows (assuming they have no handkerchief ready). It's true that face masks are better than nothing but their effectiveness is limited (they only work properly so long they're dry) and if an person coughs /sneezes towards you, it's hard for them to not cough /sneeze towards the upper half of your face.
This is why face masks are more a placebo than actually effective for healthy people.