Extrapolation of Infection Data for the CoVid-19 Virus and Estimate of the Pandemic Time Scale

Predictions about the further development of the Corona pandemic are widely diverging. Here, a simple yet powerful algorithm is introduced for extrapolating infection rate and number of total infections from available data. The calculation predicts that under present conditions the infection rate in Germany will culminate in a few weeks and decrease to low values by mid-June 2020. Total number of infections will reach several 100000 though. A refinement of the calculation is presented in the supplemental material and shows that the lock down in Germany has reduced the total number of infections from a target value of 338 000 to 184 000, corresponding to a decrease of about 45%.