“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]