I’ve been a bit confused about doubling rate. First, I noticed that many numbers (e.g. Wikipedia) are calculating how long it took to double, instead of projecting forward using e.g. yesterday’s increase. Early on this led to misleading numbers, but recently the US has been steady around 2-3 days using both methods.
However, I’m guessing that raw doubling rates depend a lot on testing, and that the US should expect to have a faster-than-actual doubling rate until our testing catches up. So I lean towards Trevor’s number of 5 days.
Good point about LW affiliation—in addition I would add that results are highly dependent on how the survey is distributed. This makes large predictions difficult, but more specific predictions (like >80% of LW affiliations will identify as atheist/agnostic) might be the way to go.
I’m still getting familiar with this community, but I suppose it’s a fun exercise so I’ve added some thoughts to the excel sheet.