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Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

bbc.com

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

#771

Post by rambojazz »

hef19898 wrote: post #657
rorykoehler wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an incredibly short sighted view. We need to be proactive not reactive. This virus is here and it's here in a big way. Positive cases are not the full picture. Median incubation period is 5 days. Italy is a warning and we're not taking it. We should all be in quarantine now so this doesn't get out of hand rather than wait for it to become uncontrollable and then trying to de-escalate it.

Ok, so you suggest every single person in Germany to be quarantined. Whether they have symptoms or not. Now that's what I call an over reaction.

It does sound extremely over the top indeed, but it might be the only way to prevent the spreading. It appears that by the time you find the first case, you are too late as the virus has been spreading all over the place. Maybe quarantining everybody, even from area with zero cases, is too much... but at least people should make a strong effort to reduce social activities for a few months.

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

#772

Post by blywi »

raxxorrax wrote: post #553
pishpash wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incorrect. The sequence test has low false positive rate and higher false negative rate. The positive results alone are significant and informative from a policy perspective. Combined with other measurements like CT, the accuracy can be high.

CT for a virus? You can only see that something is inflamed. I mean you can guess the diagnosis, but that doesn't really increases my confidence in testing. If inflammation can be detected, you probably also have symptoms already. That aside, you should limit CTs if possible. And you won't be able to do mass scans anyway. So it is just for specific cases. MRTs could also help and are not as invasive, but maybe they d…

This Chinese paper compares the sensitivity of diagnosis with chest CT vs RT-PCR:

"In a series of 51 patients with chest CT and RT-PCR assay performed within 3 days, the sensitivity of CT for COVID-19 infection was 98% compared to RT-PCR sensitivity of 71% (phttps://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/radiol.2020200432

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

#773

Post by dragonwriter »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #385
Marsymars wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Belarus?

I'm not sure how much that counts since my understanding is that the president's decrees are essentially laws, and when the judicial branch said that was unconstitutional the president just ignored them. Not exactly a lot of checks and balances.

That absolutely is a (strong) Presidential Republic, a term which does not depend on checks and balances (though some Presidential Republics feature that trait.)

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

#774

Post by dragonwriter »

reaperducer wrote: post #197
missosoup wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The united states is going to fare a lot worse. Their president is actively contradicting his own experts and essentially encouraging people to go on spreading the disease. It's going to be a clusterfuck.

People in other countries put too much weight in what the president says, Trump or otherwise, because they don't fully understand that there is an entire system of government that can fully function with or without the president. I won't go so far as to say that the position of the president is a figurehead, but it's been more than a little advisory for several generations. I watch a lot of BBC, NHK, and DW, and see…

> I won't go so far as to say that the position of the president is a figurehead, but it's been more than a little advisory for several generations.

That's cute, but in the real world the US Presidency has gotten much stronger over time, not become “more than a little advisory”.

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

#775

Post by realusername »

anigbrowl wrote: post #488
muyuan wrote: 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…

The USA is a disaster waiting to happen. I've lived through a disease outbreak that required lockdown/curfews in another country and I don't think the US is logistically or culturally prepared. I don't want to go into longer detail as it will be subjective and seem political, but I'm expecting things to Get Weird.

I do agree, it will be a disaster in Europe but the US will be even worse, absolutely nothing is prepared for that.

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

#776

Post by kalleboo »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #729
yellowapple wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair, though I don't think the US is especially unique in that regard; plenty of other countries seem to be denying the issue until it's too late. Even China waited until right before the start of the Chinese New Year (by which point a bunch of people were already out and about traveling) to impose its quarantine on Wuhan; by that point, South Korea already had confirmed cases, and the virus was likely already in Ita…

What interests me in the cases is specifically, Western or Western-style countries seem to be rising up far quicker than others. The more withheld a country is and/or the more draconian their measures, the less cases they have. Finland stood out as an interesting case so far where the number hasn't risen terribly. There was an Asian island (not Japan or Indonesia, don't remember) that was also doing incredibly well a…

> There was an Asian island (not Japan or Indonesia, don't remember) that was also doing incredibly well and specifically had lots of draconian measures

Are you thinking of Singapore?

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

#777

Post by shadow28 »

coldtea wrote: post #709
hef19898 wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so you suggest every single person in Germany to be quarantined. Whether they have symptoms or not. Now that's what I call an over reaction.

Well, let's just wait for a million dead like they expect in Italy then... that would be a proper, timid, reaction...

You just pulled that number out of your ass, didn't you?

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

#778

Post by ajross »

lend000 wrote: post #416
ajross wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/Eradic…

You're measuring the wrong thing. Quarantine isn't an attempt to "eradicate" this disease. Like you say, it's likely to become a pandemic and infect hundreds of millions or more.

You quarantine to halt the rate of infection and give your health care facilities time to care for the seriously infected. And that saves lives. A lot. It can save a lot of lives.

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

#779

Post by username90 »

RHSeeger wrote: post #744
ALittleLight wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> 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. While I don't agree with the US's lackluster response, bear in mind there's other repercussions besides "just political". The quarantines and shutdowns will almost certainly destroy a lot of people's livelihoods. From peo…

It will happen sooner or later so the number of people quarantined will just grow the longer you wait.

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

#780

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #770
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going to be hard but if Italy is any guide we will manage it after it becomes a catastrophe.

Trouble is, once its a catastrophe, its too late to put the cat back in the bag?

Why do we keep circling back to this? It is/was a catastrophe in Wuhan, and the cat is reluctantly being forced back into the bag. By existence, it is not too late. See my earlier comment in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22532892
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