Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Although true, using it doesn't add anything to analysis of corona virus specifically. The issue of exponential growth is of relevance in response to those saying that the number of deaths (insert the inplicit 'so far' here) is much less than from infuenza (annually.) It is not a 'fixation' to expose the irrelevance of that line of thinking. More generally, the issue is a combination of the facts that this virus is…
The idea that viruses always grow exponentially until they reach total saturation of the population comes from mathematical models that have never successfully modelled any real epidemic, ever. It doesn't come from experience of real diseases in nature, many of which were predicted by epidemiologists to grow to enormous proportions and yet - even in the absence of control measures - that isn't what happens. It seems…
What we are supposing is instead that the number of people who are presently infected will increase exponentially IF we don't adopt measures to decrease the spread. This is actually what you saw in the initial period and what you would be seeing now if we did nothing extraordinary to decrease the spread. If you look at the 1918 flu epidemic it ultimately infected 1/3 of the population. It is utterly unclear to me why you imagine your understanding is better than that of the experts. It would seem you yourself are guilty of the same sin you ascribe to programmers? From your animus towards the profession are you perhaps a manager of same? If so you seem to have contracted at least one of their faults.
> politicians have in the blink of an eye ceded power to a tiny cabal of (primarily) epidemiologists.
This literally isn't real.
The politicians are indeed at fault for the poor response. We cede to them substantial funds and powers to both prepare for and response to situations just like this. In fact the pentagon prepared a report on literally just this exact crisis in 2017 that called out among other things a lack of supplies. We opted to do nothing of import between now and today. In the crucial early days of this crisis instead of instituting effective measures we were busy first ignoring reports of it and then publicly claiming it is a hoax. If we aren't brave and clear sighted enough to even ascribe blame how are we to do better next time?