Question

Which selection from the section "Slowing the Spread" BEST explains what epidemiologists mean by "flattening the curve"?

Question 1 options:

All these decisions by public officials and businesses are aimed at one goal: slowing down the spread of the virus to avoid overburdening a health care system that doesn't have the infrastructure to handle a sudden surge of tens of thousands of cases at once.


But every indication is that the United States is on track to see the same exponential increase other countries are seeing, as scientist Mark Handley has been tracking on Twitter.


Epidemiologists study diseases and how they spread. They can somewhat predict how many cases of a disease are going to occur based on how the disease is behaving.


The only reason total U.S. cases aren't already skyrocketing is that coronavirus testing has been such a mess that too few people — just 77 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the whole week of March 8 — are being tested. You can't count cases you haven't identified yet.

Answer 1

A. All these decisions by public officials and businesses are aimed at one goal: slowing down the spread of the virus to avoid overburdening a health care system that doesn't have the infrastructure to handle a sudden surge of tens of thousands of cases at once.

Step-by-step explanation:

Flattening the curve means to avoid overloading our community's health care systems because of elevated rates of people needing to be hospitalized, and slowing the spread of this virus over time using social distancing and wearing masks.