[CobrastanJorji]

It wouldn't hide it FOR LONG. In a month, we'll know which hypothesis was correct.

[standardUser]

A month ago Italy was fine and now 5,000 people are dead. A month ago the virus had been in Japan for a month already... and still today fewer than 50 deaths.

Obviously time will tell with all of this. But so far, time has told us that either a) the transmission rate is extremely low in Japan for some reason or b) no one is dying from the virus in the world's oldest country, for some even harder to explain reason.

The world needs to be looking hard at Japan to see what the hell is going on there.

[lovemenot]

I strongly agree. Yet Japan is rarely mentioned along with Taiwan, HK, S. Korea as exemplars of good management.

I think it's because they've bucked the Test, Test, Test advice yet still had a relatively good outcome so far.

It feels wrong to so ignore Japan. If they are doing something right here, the world should try to find out.

[eternauta3k]

It wouldn't hide it at all. Shifting an exponential curve gives you another exponential curve.

[mantap]

This is only true over the reals, not over integers. People are integers.

[DoofusOfDeath]

People are complex, and often irrational.

[Retric]

It’s unlikely to take that long, in the US our number of dead ~= number of infected 2 weeks ago. Part of that is from in insufficient testing, but 30+% daily increases mean 2,600+% growth per month.

[Retric]

Ops, 2,600x+ growth or 260,00+% growth per month.