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What Does Flattening the Curve of COVID-19 Mean?

Today I head the term "flattening the curve" multiple times.

It is pretty basic. You can take the peak of infections out of a pandemic by implementing social distancing early in the event. See the diagram below. 

The challenge for us here in the United States is we don't know where we are on the timeline of the X axis below. Without the test kits, we are driving blind and guessing where we are on the road of the pandemic. 

Is social distancing being implemented "just in time" or did we miss our opportunity to take action? Are the actions being taken significant enough to "flatten the curve?" Only time will tell. 

 

An infographic that shows the goals of mitigation during an outbreak with two curves. The X-axis represents the number of daily cases and they Y-axis represents the amount of time since the first case. The first curve represents the number of cases when no protective measures during an outbreak are implemented and displays a large peak. The second curve is much lower, representing a much smaller rise in the number of cases if protective measures are implemented.


Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.
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