The Lily Pond - A parable within a riddle?

For those of you who still think this coronavirus stuff "is just media madness" (or liberal hoax), here's an old riddle for you:

In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. This patch doubles in size every day. It completely covers the pond in 48 days. On what day will it cover half the pond?

Many people will guess that it's day 24, and they'd be wrong.

Half the pond will be covered on day 47.

And on day 40? You'd still barely notice that the lily pads might be a problem, unless you'd been counting them every day (or listening to the folks who count them).

Right now, the rate of coronavirus infection in the US is doubling every few days. Those numbers are "small enough" - a few here, a couple hundred there - that it's easy to think it has nothing to do with you.

But at this rate of growth (doubling every few days), it will reach all 320 million of us in the USA by mid-May. With a death rate of (at least) 1.5-2%, that's five or six million deaths by summer.

You don't think this is serious problem now because the lily pads are over on the other side of the pond. If nobody was raising the alarm, you'd hardly notice the difference between this year and previous springs in the pond. Please listen to the people counting the lily pads.

Wrong guesses on riddles are no big deal. Wrong guesses on pandemics kill millions.

(NOTE: I first posted this on Facebook a few days ago, but thought I'd re-post here for wider sharing. Also, in this time of social distancing and sheltering-in-place, I'm looking at re-starting some of my broader social media venues.)