The whole “people don’t understand exponential growth” thing isn’t a very good explanation, considering that it applies to any contagious disease for which every person tends to infect some constant number of other people.
Which there are few in circulation, thanks to vaccines among other reasons (which lower effective transmission rate), so most people haven't really experienced it working. Somebody mentioned noroviruses the other day as probably the closest relevant thing people may have experienced - let someone with one loose on a cruise ship, and shit literally hits the fan very fast.