In the flattening of the curve diagram, wouldn’t both curves represent roughly equal populations? So only the peak changes, not the overall total?

Question

I guess this could be considered mathematics or economics, really, it is statistics.

In: Mathematics

Answer 1

Yep! The purpose of “flattening the curve” is not to decrease totals but to spread out incidences.

So for example, with COVID-19 we want to flatten the curve because if we spread the same number of cases out over a longer period of time, the medical system is less likely to be overwhelmed. If a small hospital has one critically ill patient every week for 20 weeks, they will be better able to give each patient complete/high quality care than if they had 20 critically ill patients at once in the same week. The hope is to increase quality of care. So case numbers stay the same, but there will be a lower mortality rate.