Those are the figures for the past two weeks. So today, the number of deaths is 4.8 times greater than a week ago. And the week before that, the increase was 18.7 fold. But March 12th was actually an aberration—the day before was 8, and the day after was 7. So let’s say the moving average for March 12 was really 6. So then the increase was 9.3 fold for that week.

I tend to favor simplicity in my thinking. I usually assume the past is the best predictor of the future. So say the number of deaths goes up 5 fold in the next week. Then it is at 1340 deaths per day. And a week later it is at 6,700 deaths a day. Obviously I hope the drastic public health measures will greatly slow the increase.

But for those who feel the public health measures are too drastic, do you have any good reason to believe the trend does not continue for another two weeks if we don’t have strict public health measures? And if the trend does continue, and we have 6,700 people dying per day, do you really think people will be traveling, eating out, shopping? So it seems to me the best way to stop the economic bleed is to slow the deaths.

And if you project out 3 weeks, you have daily deaths at 33,500. Then where is the economy? So I think that from a strictly economic perspective, we have to slow the exponential growth of deaths.