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Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

bbc.com

301–310 of 915 posts

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#301

This is an account from one of the doctors in Italy. https://twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/123714289107769753... Read the whole thing, but this passage in particular is just chilling. "5/ Patients above 65 or younger with comorbidities are not even assessed by ITU, I am not saying not tubed, I’m saying not assessed and no ITU staff attends when they arrest. Staff are working as much as they can but they are start…

Basically, the whole area had turned into Wuhan.

Sad but people are their own now. Hopeless.

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#302

What surprises me is the number of deaths in relation to the number of infections. Even higher than Iran where I would expect less effective patient management than in northern Italy. What is your opinion on this?

30% of the population is over 60. Only 17% of the Chinese`population is over 60. We should expect to see a devastating impact on Italy with a much higher CFR. https://www.populationpyramid.net/italy/2020/

And yet Germany (median age 48, nearly the oldest in the world, slightly older than Italy and similar to Japan) has seen only two deaths so far out of ~1,100 cases. I've yet to see a definitive explanation for the extreme difference between what we're seeing in Italy vs South Korea vs Germany when it comes to mortality rates. Italy has a developed-world, universal healthcare system. Perhaps the cases in Germany are not far enough in yet to produce a higher rate of death (seems unlikely, in many cases elsewhere older patients are dying rapidly). The only explanation that seems plausible that I've seen, is that their healthcare system (locally) was quickly overwhelmed and they're leaving the worst cases to die, unable to tend to them.

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#303

It seems like these actions taken by governments will ultimately be futile, so the question is: can a vaccine or effective antiviral be developed fast enough to be worth the ~2-4 months of "slow spread" that can be bought in exchange for the economic and social slowdowns a country will sustain by creating massive quarantines like this? While an authoritarian government may be better suited to positively addressing so…

Assuming that survival grants some level of immunity, if you can flatten the curve of the epidemic, you can make a limited supply of hospital beds, supplies, and personnel go a lot further.

This is a good point, and I think it is reasonable to start with the immunity assumption, since it is generally the case for respiratory viruses.

Still, I wonder what the math looks like. It has indeed been shown that flu outbreaks in ideal conditions are more intense, but conversely, the flu seasons are shorter [0]. If medical attention makes a significant difference in patient outcome, then the longer virus season is presumably preferable. However, the significance of medical attention needs to somehow be weighed against the total number of people who end up being infected and the costs of shutting down pieces of the global economy for longer periods of time (not to mention limiting individual rights.)

Consider that less vulnerable people may be more likely to become infected in their daily lives since they are more active and likely come into contact with more people. In this case, a faster outbreak with many mild cases may actually result in faster herd immunity, and therefore fewer total infections in vulnerable populations. Perhaps a partial quarantine of at-risk populations is the best solution.

[0] https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/10/big-cities-have-...

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#304
post #296

This is an account from one of the doctors in Italy. https://twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/123714289107769753... Read the whole thing, but this passage in particular is just chilling. "5/ Patients above 65 or younger with comorbidities are not even assessed by ITU, I am not saying not tubed, I’m saying not assessed and no ITU staff attends when they arrest. Staff are working as much as they can but they are start…

I am a Chinese living in Bay Area. What's described by the Italian doctor was exactly like the situation in Wuhan right after the lockdown for the first 2-3 weeks. Unfortunately, I think it will hit Italy harder this time, China locked down Wuhan but every other provinces send in supplies and doctors to help, just building new hospitals is not enough, and I don't see France/Germany doing the same to Italy. The US res…

No disrespect intended but you've probably had a misguided idea of what America is and is not and this reality is violating that for you. America is a marketing machine, remember that. For myself an American who lives abroad and interfaces with the US federal government regularly, incompetence is deep and pathological within large US organisations especially government.

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#306

This is an account from one of the doctors in Italy. https://twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/123714289107769753... Read the whole thing, but this passage in particular is just chilling. "5/ Patients above 65 or younger with comorbidities are not even assessed by ITU, I am not saying not tubed, I’m saying not assessed and no ITU staff attends when they arrest. Staff are working as much as they can but they are start…

That account has TEN tweets spanning 2013 - 2020. Then this thread. Don’t believe everything you read even if it sounds like a believable novel

Since when the volume of tweets is an indicator of their veracity?

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#307
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a Chinese living in Bay Area. What's described by the Italian doctor was exactly like the situation in Wuhan right after the lockdown for the first 2-3 weeks. Unfortunately, I think it will hit Italy harder this time, China locked down Wuhan but every other provinces send in supplies and doctors to help, just building new hospitals is not enough, and I don't see France/Germany doing the same to Italy. The US res…

> it almost feels like Trump has some secret weapons ready to save the day. You would think that, since most of the leaders are in a high risk demographic and spend large chunk of their time shaking hands with strangers, they would be more vigilant He's behaving entirely consistently with how he always has: deny everything, project perfection. There's no signal here of a secret weapon, it's a complete shit show.

> He's behaving entirely consistently with how he always has: deny everything, project perfection.

> There's no signal here of a secret weapon, it's a complete shit show.

Can't really disagree, but I feel like I'm taking crazy pills with the way people in the US are talking about the response now. Was the US MSM not spending all of January and February telling us "calm down, you know the common flu kills WAY more people than this thing and we don't freak out about it!" and complaining how Trump's proposed Chinese traveler ban was both a) racist and b) would have little to no effect?

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#308
post #213
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If overreaction is the problem, do you not think that letting the pandemic get worse, before we act, will trigger an even bigger overreaction?

I call it an overreaction precisely because I see no evidence of a really grave pandemic.

Individual risk is low, systemic risk is high. With the current the current numbers, the hospitalization rate is over 5% (critical cases). If the infection reaches 10% of the US population, it will require 1.5M hospital beds. Currently there are around 1M, at +60% occupancy.

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#309
post #296

This is an account from one of the doctors in Italy. https://twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/123714289107769753... Read the whole thing, but this passage in particular is just chilling. "5/ Patients above 65 or younger with comorbidities are not even assessed by ITU, I am not saying not tubed, I’m saying not assessed and no ITU staff attends when they arrest. Staff are working as much as they can but they are start…

I am a Chinese living in Bay Area. What's described by the Italian doctor was exactly like the situation in Wuhan right after the lockdown for the first 2-3 weeks. Unfortunately, I think it will hit Italy harder this time, China locked down Wuhan but every other provinces send in supplies and doctors to help, just building new hospitals is not enough, and I don't see France/Germany doing the same to Italy. The US res…

Trump's performance so far is a massive disappointment to say the least, and more of a parody even by Trump's standard.

I am not sure what he is doing is even remotely serving himself that well either. Addressing the Coronavirus upfront is the only way to cheer up the market right now. Did he really think he can just fight this virus with speech or tweets?

This is bothering me no end, and severely impact my confidence in US itself overall. Damn it, this is a full on crisis, the shit is about to hit the fan so hard.

Re: Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

#310

I was not very surprised that Italy turned out to be the (first?) major hit in Europe. Considering the strong business connections, it had to be either us or Germany. We are, as much of the world, importers from China, but many enterprises here are also, somewhat, strong exporters to China (I can see it from my dayjob as industrial automation SI), and if you factor in the small average size of Italian companies requi…

Italy also has the second-oldest population in the world, after Japan. And a below average number of hospital beds available per capita.
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