More Innumeracy

This is from Reuters, so it's available by clicking a link the world over. Here's a quote:

The United States recorded its first coronavirus fatality on Feb. 29. It took 38 days to reach 10,000 deaths and just nine more days to go from 10,000 fatalities to 30,000. The previous high single-day death toll was 2,364 on Tuesday.

It's true, but the presentation of the math is misleading.

First off, note that going 10K to 30K deaths is tripling in 9 days.

Secondly, how many times would you have to triple to get to 10K from one? Hmmm: 1, 3, 9, 27, 81, 243, 729, 2187, 6561 means that tripling 9 times would get you well past 10K.

Third, to triple 9 times in 38 days is tripling a little more than every 4 days.

Would you rather triple in 4 days or 9 days?

While all of these deaths are tragedies, and the ongoing pandemic is a horrible thing, what we have here is evidence of "flattening the curve" reported as things getting worse because " It took 38 days to reach 10,000 deaths and just nine more days to go from 10,000 fatalities to 30,000."[emphasis added]