LogFAQs > #941878482

Given the fact that those are deaths when the occurred and not when they were reported (as they explain in the caption, so a bunch of deaths are missing, particularly the most recent ones) it could be completely consistent with exponential growth with an R slightly over 1, yes.

It's not that hard to understand why you should expect growth to be roughly exponential. The mechanism is that each individual person infects R other people on average. If R was constant that gives you exponential growth. In reality R is slowly varying as people modify their behavior, new rules are put in place, etc, but growth will be obviously be proportional to the currently infected population. With linear growth that's not the case.

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Congrats to azuarc, GotD2 Guru champ!