“The Curve”, is there only one?
Though this concept of “The Curve” is often referred to as a single entity, there are actually various curves a play. In a simple way to conceptualize the population dynamics, we can define 3 fundamental curves: the infection curve, the mortality curve, and the recovery curve.
The infection curve describes the rates of COVID-19 infection across our society. [graph 1].
[Insert graph 1]
The mortality curve describes the mortality rates across society. The peak of this curve is offset to the right on the X-axis as compared to the infection curve [graph 2]. The peak to peak delta (XPM- XPI) will correspond to the average time duration between infection diagnosis and mortality.
[Insert graph 2]
The recovery curve describes the recovery rates across society. The peak of this curve is offset to the right on the X-axis as compared to the infection curve [graph 3]. The peak to peak time difference (ΔX) will correspond to the average time duration between infection diagnosis and recovery. The corresponding peak to peak population ratio delta-Y will represent the number of people who passed away at the peak. The peak to peak ratio (Y peak-recovery/Ypeak-infection) will represent the recovery rate at the peak of disease [graph 3].
[Insert graph 3]