One Model for the Spread of an Epidemic Is That $5000$

question 32

Short Answer

One model for the spread of an epidemic is that the rate of spread is jointly proportional to the number of infected people and the number of uninfected people. In an isolated town of $5000$ inhabitants, $130$ people have a disease at the beginning of the week and $1500$ have it at the end of the week. How long does it take for $50 \%$ of the population to be infected?

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Definitions:

Heuristic

A problem-solving approach using practical methods or rules of thumb for making quick decisions, often sacrificing accuracy for speed.

Confirmation Bias

The inclination to seek out, understand, prefer, and remember data in a manner that supports one's already held beliefs or theories.

Law of Small Numbers

The erroneous belief that small samples will accurately represent the larger population from which they are drawn.

Law of Small Numbers

A cognitive bias that leads people to draw broad conclusions from small samples of data.