Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics • Hacker News Board

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#11

Post by gnulinux » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:00 PM UTC

enitihas wrote: post #4

jacquesm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Korea had people actively (hard to believe, I know) making things much worse. But they didn't downplay it for the first two weeks after the virus took hold. With these exponential issues time is everything.

Yup, Korea's Patient #31 made things a lot worse, or else they would be doing much better right now.

Would you be able to explain what did they do?

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#12

Post by ryuukk_ » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:00 PM UTC

SK is american's dog, so they hide/fake data

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#13

Post by 2019-nCoV » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:02 PM UTC

This outbreak is a litmus test for the competence of countries. It's already shone a bright light on the fragility of global supply lines, cheap travel and open borders. These are the aspects of life most likely to change after this is all over.

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#14

Post by black6 » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:02 PM UTC

enitihas wrote: post #5

Just curious, does anybody know how did Japan manage to do so well, inspite of a very old population. Also what does HN think is the better place to be right now? A mega city or a small village?

A small village/town; away from the urban craziness; where you can walk over to your neighbor’s to ask for a pound of dried beans because the just-in-time retail model and cascading supply-chain effects means your local grocery store shelves have been emptied of the staples.

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#15

Post by starpilot » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:04 PM UTC

Korea is doing some robotic testing of the samples:

> Rather than a human mixing the solutions, the samples are instead put into a diagnostic machine. Inside the machine, a robot arm pipettes the solution and mixes the liquids on a number of tests at once. According to Chun, this method takes only four hours to test samples from 94 patients -- four times faster than the manual method. It also reduces the risk of human error or contamination.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-...

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#16

Post by joe_the_user » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

enitihas wrote: post #5

Just curious, does anybody know how did Japan manage to do so well, inspite of a very old population. Also what does HN think is the better place to be right now? A mega city or a small village?

Italy's health care system has been overwhelmed - there aren't enough ventilators available for the people who need ventilators to survive and there are now a lot of them.

Italy's aging population has increased the proportion of people needing ventilators and the infection rate increases the total number.

Moreover, Italy's total actual infection is likely higher than the figures due to Italy's failure to test and control the situation. So the true fatality ratio is probably lower but hardly gives much comfort.

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#17

Post by DyslexicAtheist » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

magicsmoke wrote: post #6

joe_the_user wrote: post #2

It's been making the argument that Korea's aggressive testing has allowed them greater control over the epidemic. Of course, there are a variety of other factors at work. Italy is the second "oldest" country in the world after Japan so Coronavirus infections just would be more deadly there. Also a lot of the Korean infections were confined to a single city in Korea (though the Italian infections also had an epicenter…

If Italy is the second oldest country in the world after Japan, how do they have 800 deaths compared to 16 in Japan? Something about those numbers seems off. Is it because Japan's elderly population tend to live in rural areas compared to Italy's or something else societally related?

meh. I've been married to a Japanese for over 2 decades now, and lived in Tokyo for many years including when Fukushima happened. I wouldn't trust Japanese politicians with their reported numbers any more as I'd trust China or the US.

There is one difference in Japan to Italy that might explain the lower infection rates: it's socially accepted to wear face masks (not only since covid but since the 90ies actually!)

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#18

Post by neixidbeksoxyd » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:06 PM UTC

enitihas wrote: post #5

Just curious, does anybody know how did Japan manage to do so well, inspite of a very old population. Also what does HN think is the better place to be right now? A mega city or a small village?

I have visited several times and even before this virus I saw people wearing masks all the time. At grocery stores I remember seeing the workers who were stocking things wearing masks and gloves, which I never see in the US. Wearing masks while sick was already expected and has been for decades. Maybe since it's already in their culture to do what they can to stop spreading diseases, they were much better prepared than the rest of the world. They could also be lying, but that seems unlikely since the information would get out very quickly.

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#19

Post by Riseed » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:06 PM UTC

gnulinux wrote: post #11

enitihas wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, Korea's Patient #31 made things a lot worse, or else they would be doing much better right now.

Would you be able to explain what did they do?

"Of the 152 cases [article dated Feb 21] that have been found in the city, the majority have been linked to a [church], where Patient 31, a woman said to be in her 60s, is known to have attended at least four services before being diagnosed." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-so...

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#20

Post by gnicholas » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:07 PM UTC

My understanding is that the epicenter in Korea was a church whose audience skews young, which has affected the mortality rate there. Basically, if you have a bunch of young people get it, your mortality rate will look lower than if it spread through an older segment of the population.