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Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

bbc.com

641–650 of 915 posts

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

#641
post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t need an understanding of exponential growth, they only need to look at examples: China, extreme measures and barely contained it; Italy delayed measures, turning fast into a disaster. How many examples do we need?

A couple of weeks ago it was "China was slow and it turned into a disaster". Now China was fast and Italy is turining into a disaster. Someties it seems that people want to be that a disaster, so they push that narrative. Same thing happens with the deniers, so.

China was slow, and it turned into a disaster, then they got their act together.

Italy was slower than that.

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

#642

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:…

Note that OECD's 9.9/10 is based on mortality rate and life expectancy, and therefore not a direct indicator of health service quality. Maybe the air in Italy is just very clean and the food healthy.

Air quality is the lowest in all Italy in Lombardy, as it is a plain with the most industries of the countries, so if anything there would be an anticorrelation because of that.

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

#643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calls to not panic are worse that useless. They are dangerous, extremely dangerous now. They lead to complacency and they will lead to death.

No, panic is making it much more difficult to implement counter measures. It also takes away crucial man power from fighting the disease to fighting the panic. And finally, panic makes it harder for health care professionals to actually care for patients. So no, panic never helps. Staying calm and level headed does. But if you want to panic, do it. But do it in private, panic itself is rather contagious as well. Mayb…

> No, panic is making it much more difficult to implement counter measures.

Here in Denmark, where we're seeing an outbreak take hold, it's the EXACT opposite.

People are going out even though they have been told to self-quarantine, even boarding planes.

A couple refused to cancel a vacation trip even though they had been asked to quarantine because their son has been diagnosed with the virus.

I really think we could use a tiny bit more panic

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

#644
post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only to catch the very first sentence? "From a well respected friend and intensivist/A&E consultant who is currently in northern Italy:" Basically, that make this twitter thread uncorborated news unless someone reached out to the Italian doctor referenced in it.

I am from Italy and every single friend of mine working in healthcare as a doctor has confirmed me that the situation is like the one described here. A friend of mine who is an orthopedist outside lomdardia has also confirmed that they have already asked him to work extra hours and they are already at full capacity, so he's preparing to assist covid patients. Personally I know a girl whose soon-to-be husband from zer…

So doctors work overtime during situations like this. Surprise. My problem with these reports is that they have a tendency to spread fear, especially the way the are presented. They also undermine trust in public information which only makes it harder to implement measures, in turn making it harder to contain the virus.

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

#645
post #447

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.

Now long would you maintain that quarantine? Is there some amount of time after which the virus will go away? Any call for drastic measures, even when drastic measures seem like common sense to some people , need to explain why the measures should be implemented and under what circumstances they should be lifted.

Until we have a vaccine or at least better treatment options.

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

#646
post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flu season is accounted for in normal hospital beds and other capacity planning. A sudden huge surge in need for ICU care is not accounted for.

But my point is that surely these additional 60,000 people (and probably many more who recovered) must have gone through ICU.

Not necessarily, and maybe they didn't need artificial ventilation which is the big deal here.

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

#647
post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people typically die of diagnosed flu? It's my understanding that most flu deaths are undiagnosed, which is why the CDC's ranges for flu deaths are always so broad; they're estimating how many pneumonia deaths they think were caused by the flu season.

That's why I said "diagnosed" because people die of pneumonia from time to time, and this can sometimes be a result of having the flu, but the pneumonia is apparent, but not necessarily that they previously had the flu.

So they didn't diagnose for flu. But they diagnosed for COVID-19. Got it.

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

#648

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…

Am I the only to catch the very first sentence? "From a well respected friend and intensivist/A&E consultant who is currently in northern Italy:" Basically, that make this twitter thread uncorborated news unless someone reached out to the Italian doctor referenced in it.

There's hundreds of similar recounts on social media at the moment, this is not an isolated case

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

#649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>even if the other side is to blame, we shouldn’t focus on that until we solve the problem? Exactly! That is what is meant by not letting polarized politics drive the issue. We shouldn't care what 'side' is doing what, we should be focused on preventing an epidemic. Personally, IDGAF about assigning blame to any side, I'd rather that the petty bickering is dropped and effective measures are taken. I realize the clim…

How do you start taking measures if one side does't think there is a problem?

It’s almost like climate change sped up 100x.

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

#650
post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point I was raising was that calls to not panic suppress non-panic activities. They are sending the message that there's nothing much to worry about. This is extraordinarily dangerous. If necessary precautions will also cause some to panic, so be it. At this point, things are so looking so grim that there's no way to tell people not to panic without unacceptable downplaying of the gravity of the situation.

But then the counterpoint is that once panic steps in it becomes hard to manage. People should be called to take this seriously and to proper civic duties. Panic is was caused the toilet paper craze.

Oh no! The toilet paper craze. That is absolutely the biggest threat we are facing right now. Not the complacency on display everywhere.
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