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Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

bbc.com

401–410 of 915 posts

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

#401

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…

>We are, as much of the world, importers from China, but many enterprises here are also, somewhat, strong exporters to China Italy also has a surprisingly large number of Chinese migrant workers, mainly in the fashion and leather goods sector. Skilled Chinese workers in Milan and Prato provide the kudos of the "Made in Italy" label at considerably lower cost. https://www.economist.com/special-report/2018/05/17/long-t…

You hit the nail on the head. In addition to the fashion industry, Italy is a favourite destination for Chinese tourists for sightseeing as well as buying luxury and said fashion goods.

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

#402
post #249
post #179

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People in the UK have already been panic buying, mostly pasta and toilet roll AFAICT

The toilet roll thing seems to be everywhere (Germany is full of "why toilet paper!" outrage as well), but do people really panic buy so much? Toilet paper is an item you buy once every few weeks or months, depending on household size, it's very high volume per unit of money so shops stock just enough to satisfy an even random distribution of individual buying times. Now if all of a sudden, triggered by news, a consi…

Seeing the same thing happen across different cultures over very different kinds of crises I came to the conclusion that this has to be a Freudian slip of the fact that people subconsciously care more about being able to keep their rear end tidy than eating.

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

#403
post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the US though, you have other countries in Europe handling this abysmally like The Netherlands. Indonesia is still in the "pray to make it go away" stage despite multiple cases in Singapore being traced back to Indonesian travel (including one rich Indonesian who couldn't find anyone to treat them in Indonesia so deliberately flew to Singapore on a private plane to get healthcare).

>Indonesia is still in the "pray to make it go away" stage This is true until last Thursday, but now the government had acknowledged at least 19 confirmed cases. Still super late though.

Yeah, but if multiple Singaporeans who are spending just a few days in Indonesia are coming back with COVID, it's obviously not 19 cases. Indonesia is where Iran was just a few weeks ago.

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

#404

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I'm incredibly ignorant, can someone explain why a drug used to treat arthritis might work against a Coronavirus? I just don't understand the connection/interaction, or why this was even tried originally? Genuinely looking to learn.

One of the ways the virus kills the patient is causing a cytokine storm [0][1]. And tocilizumab suppresses one of the cytokines in humans [2]. 0: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/here-is-w... 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_release_syndrome 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tocilizumab

"It might be a cytokine storm".

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

#405
post #315

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Politicians have no understanding of exponential growth. They look at low numbers and think "we have a lot of time" then are surprised later when they in fact don't.

We should be quarantining every city in the U.S. right now. You're 100% correct, and it's going to be just as bad here.

I think in the us something as simple as paid sick leave for all service workers could make a huge difference.

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

#406
post #394

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Most severe cases require trained medical staff. Since ~20% of infections requires hospitalization, no healthcare system is prepared for an exponential rise in SARS-CoV-2 infections. Most fatalities are from pneumonia. Lots of details are available all over. You may want to read up.

The numbers out of Korea are nowhere near 20%. About 0.9% of cases are considered severe, according to the most recent statements from the KCDC: https://m.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20200307046000017?fbclid=IwAR0tl... Someone is exaggerating, or something is fundamentally inadequate about the Italian response.

> The numbers out of Korea are nowhere near 20%. About 0.8% of cases are considered severe.

0.7% have died, and even that's gone up in the last few days as more cases progress. I don't know the specific stats of how many were severe/critical but it's probably much higher than the mortality rate. If you take a look at the age breakdown of the infected it seems they've been good about keeping it away from the elderly, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_outbreak_in_S...

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

#407
post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please note that Lombardy has a very very good health service. The OECD put a score on this [1]: 9.9/10. This is in the top 5% across all regions. Other european regions seem to have lower average scores and their governments are not taking serious actions. [2] How the US is reacting from my perspective (italian confined near Rome) seems borderline madness. Something about this situation confuses me a lot. [1] https:…

Politicians have no understanding of exponential growth. They look at low numbers and think "we have a lot of time" then are surprised later when they in fact don't.

> Politicians have no understanding of exponential growth

To be fair, that is true of 95% of humanity.

These politicians are representative of their voters, as democracy should be.

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

#408
post #258

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Rice and a good rice cooker. Plenty of big 4.54kg packs of California-grown Nishiki rice on the shelf in Sainsbury's last time I checked. I like pasta too, but don't eat as much as I used to. Rice is so versatile!

> Rice and a good rice cooker. I like rice, but am concerned by the number of people who don't wash it (arsenic) [1]. Then you have the issue of reheating/leaving to cool [2]. With the amount of idiocy going around it seems like a massive risk. Pasta is very difficult to mess up, worst case you're just going to get some crunchy or over-boiled pasta. [1] https://www.recapo.com/the-doctors/the-doctors-diet/the-doct...…

I eat a lot of rice and am now worried, but man, [1] is just a random blog that looks like it's a fake news website. The author blurb just says she married the love of her life in 2012. Uh, how is that relevant?

It's the kind of article/site like one you'd see taking a graph of the effects 2011 Japanese quake on currents across the world, and claiming it to be a graph of how radiation has reached California...

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

#409
post #169
post #24

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I hope (and suspect) that the ECB (and Europe as a whole) will financially stand behind Italy, no questions asked (I'm a fellow European).

What happens when France and Germany and Spain reach Italy totals? Who will be left to help out?

The ECB, of course. It can create an unlimited money and use it to support the stability of banks that are the largest holders of sovereign debt. It's done this before and it will do it again.

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

#410
post #219

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Can they be believed?

The CCP claims new cases are almost eliminated outside of Wuhan city limits; that'd be a hard thing to fake if it were really churning along at peak strength.

This is actually the hardest to believe. The virus has run it course in Wuhan and it is likely dieing down as a significant number of people having developed immunity to it.

But outside of Wuhan, there is likely a number of infected persons in the population still transmitting it and waiting to resurface into more serious cases after people get back to work.

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