Covid-19: Is it possible to get to r0 < 1 through social distancing measures?
I believe r0 is an exponent...

It is the average number of individuals who become infected by each infected individual.

If one infected individual infects exactly one other individual (r0 = 1), the progress will be straight line; the rate will be a flat line based on "mean time between infections"; total number of infections over time will be linear sloping upwards.

If r0 > 1, then it will be an exponential increase; how rapidly/steeply it curves up depends again on the mean time over which that propagation of infection occurs.

If r0 &lt; 1, then it will be an exponential decay. New infections continue to occur, but the overall rate of infection decreases toward but never quite reaching zero.