Imho, exponential growth especially, and then clustering.
Some pretty animations in a lesson might be helpful.
Fire grows in a similar way.
I've seen people up in arms because of things like a workplace of 1000 people shut down because "only" 20 people tested positive one day.
What's the problem?
To people who don't understand exponential growth it seems like 1 in 50 people is a fuss about nothing.
To people who do understand, it's an early-warning signal which says 500 people will get it in weeks due to the confined workspace, if not stopped urgently. And they will infect 1000s in the surrounding community in the same timeframe.
(To anyone tempted to point out the published R isn't that high, local R is highly dependent on situation and who mixes with whom. In a confined workspace, especially with people moving around, it's higher than in the general population. This is why it's useful to teach clustering in addition to exponential growth.)
Some pretty animations in a lesson might be helpful.
Fire grows in a similar way.
I've seen people up in arms because of things like a workplace of 1000 people shut down because "only" 20 people tested positive one day.
What's the problem?
To people who don't understand exponential growth it seems like 1 in 50 people is a fuss about nothing.
To people who do understand, it's an early-warning signal which says 500 people will get it in weeks due to the confined workspace, if not stopped urgently. And they will infect 1000s in the surrounding community in the same timeframe.
(To anyone tempted to point out the published R isn't that high, local R is highly dependent on situation and who mixes with whom. In a confined workspace, especially with people moving around, it's higher than in the general population. This is why it's useful to teach clustering in addition to exponential growth.)