The following article is worth a read. It explains in basic terms the
exponential growth driving the mandate for social distancing.

The Sober Math Everyone Must Understand about the Pandemic
by Jason S Warner, medium.com, March 16, 2020
https://medium.com/@Jason_Scott_Warner/the-sober-math-everyone-must-understand-about-the-pandemic-2b0145881993

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to
understand the exponential function.”
– Prof. Al Bartlett