About 5 days ago, I touched on some of the key points to look at when determining if the spread of the virus is slowing down or picking up in Ghana. Since then, I’ve charted the rate at which the share of active cases vs recoveries is growing and the curves are starting to look flat.
Here’s what it means:
- Pandemics like Covid-19 typically have an exponential growth curve when they initially begin to spread.
- However, as mitigation and control efforts begin to kick in, the growth curve flips from exponential to polynomial — as the rate of spread begins to flatten.
- Eventually the growth rate in new cases slows down enough for us to hit the peak of the outbreak.
- From the graph above, it was around May 13th – 14th when we experienced a drop in the number of active cases due to a spike in the number of recoveries.
- Since then, the two curves have held steady. It is still too early though to confirm that disease is truly slowing down in Ghana.
- Experts generally recommend a 2 week observation period to effectively conclude if the virus is slowing down. That means we will be looking at the end of May to see if the trend continues to hold.
- Or better yet, if the share of active cases drops even further as the share of recoveries rises. Stay tuned!
