[ufov2]

That assumes you are sampling uniformly, and not in already saturated clusters. The doubling time is also not a known constant, as it depends on actions taken etc, and uncertainty in it will broaden the distribution.

Obviously, all this is basic statistics and should be known to epiodemiologists, who hopefully have some input to policies.

For large N_obs, this will maybe be less important as you're going to find the severe cases anyway, but the uncertainty is significant in the beginning stages, and it is unfortunately these stages where actions will have most impact.

[trashtester]

As long as growth remains linear in an exponential plot, you are nowhere near the saturation point. When about half the population is already infected, the number of new cases should grow roughly linearly. In Italy, it seems to still grow exponentially.

Itally has already passed the number of simultanous cases that their healthcare system can handle. I don't believe they really want to find out at what level the saturation point can be found. That could mean hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, dead.