Pandemic Spread Simulation

Click on values to change them! Exponential growth can be a tricky and scary thing. It's not something that we have a lot of experience with in our everyday lives, so what does it really mean when someone on the nightly news says that there's a virus out there spreading exponentially through the population? This simulation allows you to see for yourself how a pandemic can quickly and unexpectedly blaze through a population. For a few days you're safe and the disease is rare, but suddenly it's everywhere. How does social distancing help? What does it take to flatten the curve? This is a simple simulation of how a novel virus (such as the COVID-19 coronavirus) spreading through a population can achieve exponential growth. An easy way for exponential growth to occur is when an organism replicates (like when a virus replicates in a population). One critter becomes two, two …