Corona Virus and the Wheat on Chessboard problem

Exponential growth is really counter intuitive. But think of a chessboard where on the first square you have one grain of wheat. And every square you double the amount of wheat

Entire World Population number of wheat is square 34.

UK and Italy population are each square 27

US is Square 29

Ireland is square 24

Cases of Coronavirus currently UK, US and Ireland are about 18 squares behind the entire population number. Italy about 13 squares behind. Or 5 ahead of us. We at the moment move onto a new square every 4 days according to here. So Italy now is Ireland, UK or US in three weeks time at that really fast growth rate. Infection rates are not exactly exponential, eventually they start running out of new people to infect. But thinking about doubling is a useful shorthand to see how things can get scary fast.

I work with colleagues in China. The region they are in Liaoning has 43 million people. This would be Square 26.5. Liaoning, Mainland China
Confirmed: 125 Deaths: 1 Recovered: 110 Active: 14 These 125 cases puts them on square 8. They are at the same ratio as we are 18 doublings behind everyone being infected.

They wear mask all the time outside and in the office. Each person is only allowed to go to office one day in 3. All schools are closed.

They are at the same point as Ireland, UK and US and are on lockdown compared to here. Increasing this time to move to the next square like China and Singapore have done is really important