It isn't a classic case of one person can ruin it for everyone. When I choose not to go to the bar, the guy at the bar that ignored the advice about not going out in public still doesn't infect me.

So less dramatically: individuals can (and will!) reduce their exposure to infected people that make poor choices.

Of course the more people that do the right thing the better, but it isn't a situation where the outcome is controlled just by the worst actors.

Unless you hermetically seal yourself from the outside world, you are still at risk. Yes that risk can be reduced, but as more and more people are affected, your own chances go up exponentially, no matter what measures you take.

Yes, it's the value of the exponent that I am talking about. Smaller is, uh, exponentially, better than larger.

(I'm being sarcastic, but changing the exponent is (literally) what all the public health messaging about flattening the curve is about)

(to be completely pedantic, flattening the curve is about changing the base. The exponent is time.)

No, the equation is (currently infected)^(rate*time).

Community mitigation changes the rate.

Okay, I think you're right here. But then why when I calculate compound interest, it's (1+rate)^time ?

The infection is continuously compounding. This video is hand wavy, but it shows the relationship:

https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-fi...

> Unless you hermetically seal yourself from the outside world, you are still at risk.

By that logic, unless you hermetically seal yourself from the outside world, you are still putting everyone else at risk.

And in either case, by that same logic, isolation apparently doesn't matter, so might as well still go to the bar.