Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country • Hacker News Board

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

#411

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 5:06 AM UTC

soneil wrote: post #264

atleta wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call it a psychosis, because in this case people are right. If you look at the numbers [1] it went 10x in 10 days in Italy. Despite the counter measures. Now it's only 7.3k if the efficiency of the counter measures don't increase, it will be 73k in 10 days, 730k in 20 and probably 7M in a month. With 20% requiring hospitalization. Which simply cannot be managed at this scale. (Probably not even at the 730k…

The hospitalisation part really is key here. At this point stopping it really isn't on the cards. We need to slow it enough that hospitals can keep up. 7M people catching it next month, vs 7M people catching it over the span of a year, are two very different 7M's. The rate is far more problematic than the actual number.

Why does everyone keep saying stopping it is impossible. It is literally happening in front of us in China.

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

#412

Post by Laforet » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

alisonatwork wrote: post #168

afiori wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this is that a 14 day total economic halt will be devastating. Even assuming all office workers work remote basic social structure will be endangered. The hospitals need to stay open, people need to keep operating water and electricity utilities, food distribution needs to continue as many do not have 14 days of stock at home. It is not about those dams politician that only care about reelection numb…

In China we have been on economic halt since late January. The hospitals stay open, utilities are running, food deliveries, all of that is still working. There is no shortage of food or other daily products. What has changed is that almost everything is being delivered from online store or purchased from supermarket or pharmacy during restricted hours. Anybody who worked a pink collar job before has no job now. Anybo…

Hospitals in China have been cancelling all elective surgeries and sending the majority of their in-patient home. This was done partly due to the fears of the virus but also because a large part of irregular staff (nurse assistants contractors, medical students and registrars) were away and unable to work. Bear in mind the outbreak happened in late winter when most hospitals would run at near capacity anyway and there is no way to avoid the loss of life.

I agree that we have not fully realised the effect of the lockdown yet, but from what I have gathered things are not very promising. It's unlikely that people will ever go without food or shelter, however the economic progress they worked hard to achieve in the past decade could very easily be undone.

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

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Post by newtoday » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

Ma8ee wrote: post #405

fragsworth wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the past 5 days, some organizations who can afford it have shut down offices and are providing just that. I'm not at liberty to expose info on who, because I'm not sure it's been made public or not.

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

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Post by nutjob2 » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

PeterStuer wrote: post #107

paganel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

You seem to forget that the ECB is there for the banks, not for the people or their countries.

Yes, the ECB is there to support and regulate the banks, that is its job. There is a very good reason for this: if you don't have stable and healthy banks you don't have a functioning economy.

People of your ideological ilk see this as some sort of negative but it's absolutely vital. You may think of banks as evil and having a lot of money, but that money is not theirs but "the people's."

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

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Post by Polylactic_acid » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

hermitdev wrote: post #391

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of the phenomenon where a slowdown in traffic on a road causes all of the cars to bunch up. And then after the blockage is gone, the bunch up continues to cause more cars to bunch up and the slowdown exists long after the issue is gone. It seems like the fact that toilet paper is gone causes people to buy it whenever its available which causes it to be gone.

I see this on I88 outside of Chicago all the goddamn time. Takes a little bit of aggressive driving to get past it, but eventuallually you'll find a point where there is a mile gap in the left lane, becausr people dont accelerate after a slowdown. Its fruatrating and caises me easily 10 minutes per day. I'm fine if you want to drive below the speed limit, but move put of the way (I'm talking people driving 45 in a 60…

Its not entirely peoples fault. There is a delay between when you see space ahead of you and when your car accelerates. You also have to wait for the car in front to move far enough away for you to have a safety gap. To avoid this issue, everyone has to accelerate at the same time, but since you can't know if/when/how fast the person in front will accelerate, you can't possibly plan this without putting yourself at a huge risk of crashing in to the back of them. There are plenty of traffic simulations that show this same effect happening even with simulated, non distracted, rule following drivers.

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

#416

Post by lend000 » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

ajross wrote: post #359

lend000 wrote: post #216

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…

> It seems like these actions taken by governments will ultimately be futile Why do you say this is futile? Quarantines work. They're just very expensive.

If you look at highly infectious diseases that were effectively eradicated, most either ran their course and infected hundreds of millions (Spanish flu, swine flu), or were eradicated with both quarantine and vaccination (Smallpox, rinderpest). I would be very interested if you could find an example of a highly contagious disease that was stopped without a cure or vaccine [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_infectious_dise...

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

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Post by mr_toad » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 5:11 AM UTC

Rebelgecko wrote: post #298

jfkebwjsbx wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if European countries worked differently...

Are there any presidential republics in Europe?

France, for one, has a directly elected president with executive power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_France

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

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Post by irq11 » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 5:11 AM UTC

flukus wrote: post #406

irq11 wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

There’s a link, right there in my post, with more recent and relevant data than you’re citing, and it is directly from the Korean health services: 59 / 6767 confirmed cases were severe or critical in Korea at the time of the report. That’s a rate of 0.89%

The error bars on that estimate certainly encompass 1-2%, but they don’t span to 20%. Either Korea is doing something fundamentally different, or the 20% number is wrong.

I strongly suspect that OP simply took the “80% of cases are minor” stat, subtracted from 100%, and concluded that 20% are therefore hospitalized. This method is wrong.

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

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Post by ALittleLight » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 5:14 AM UTC

muyuan wrote: post #296

moultano wrote: post #271

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…

I am extremely disappointed in the American government on this. We have had a significant warning and we've seen the virus in multiple countries and the response has been so lackluster.

Why should we wait 20 days for things to get terrible before going to quarantines and lock down? Surely China and Italy have shown us our future.

I partly think the problem is political. If you quarantine and the virus is controlled, then it looks like you panicked over nothing, because you took this huge reaction and nothing much happened. However, if you wait till it's sufficiently bad and then you quarantine everyone will understand what you did, and later, you may get praised for your decisive leadership in a time of struggle.

What I mostly wish is that citizens could throw some sort of flag now to say "This crisis is being poorly handled. If this goes badly, let's have a review, figure out why, and correct the problem once this is settled."

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

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Post by Polylactic_acid » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 5:16 AM UTC

LilBytes wrote: post #376

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia has had every supermarket totally cleared of toilet paper for 2 weeks now. Long life foods have had unstable availability as well. At least everyone will be stocked up while the supply chain is still fine and before any real issue comes up.

We've had police guarding TP in Brisbane for a few days.

Wait what? I know there have been police called to stores but what do you mean guarding? Are they literally standing in the store watching the TP?