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

#91

Post by orblivion » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

gHosts wrote: post #24

Reminder for those in despair... It is merely enough to make the r0 after containment measures less than 1. Then the problem will eventually go away. As someone said, social distancing measures to work must be done when it seems to be overreacting. And if they work, it will seem as if we overreacted.

Does anybody have opinions on outdoor activities in small groups? Supposing we've come to the point where we're otherwise staying at home where possible. It could get psychologically daunting, especially for those of us who live alone. (Video conferencing could help as well). I thought some outdoor games with people in real life, maybe 10-15 people, staying a meter away from each other, etc. Is that small risk, miniscule risk, significant risk?

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

#92

Post by yongjik » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

1-6 wrote: post #57

enitihas wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Went to two massive church gatherings while advised to isolate, gatherings with 1000 people.

It's not really a church. They're a secretive society of church corrupters spreading false teachings.

From what I've heard, the Sincheonji church had a long tradition of sending followers to other churches, hiding their identity, so that they make a lot of friends there, start small clubs and bible studies, and eventually convert them into their own church. (I even heard there were cases when they converted a pastor, winning over a church wholesale, though that might be a bit embellished.)

The problem was so bad that, even before the current epidemic, other "regular" churches had a sign saying "No member of Sincheonji is allowed in our church." So, yeah, not exactly your garden variety Christian church.

When you think about it, this behavior would make Sincheonji a perfect vector for spreading the virus. And that's what happened. Yikes.

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

#93

Post by Fnoord » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

enitihas wrote: post #48

dsjoerg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your last line is the super important point, occurred to me today as well. If we beat this thing with social distancing, idiots will say "See! There was no reason to panic!"

I think it is fine to let the idiots win on this one and rub it in our face forever. I would be willing to boost the ego of anyone if we can contain this.

How will they affect the next corona virus or other pandemic though? They'll be able to see "COVID-19 was a joke, this one will be too".

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

#94

Post by elorant » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

T-A wrote: post #26

tomerico wrote: post #10

Italy has an older population, hence more susceptible to deaths and spreading of the virus: - Average age of death due to Coronavirus in Italy is 82 [1] - In Italy, 3.65% of the population is 80 or older [2]. - In Korea, 1.75% of the population is 80 or older [3] [1] https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/covid-19... [2] https://www.populationpyramid.net/italy/2019/ [3] https://www.populationpyramid.net/…

3.65% / 1.75% ~ 2.09, so the difference in age profile might explain a factor 2 in the mortality ratio of Italy vs South Korea. The actual ratio is currently 7.9: 827 out of 12462 cases in Italy (6.6%), 66 out of 7869 cases in South Korea (0.84%).

My guess is that there are a lot of unreported cases in Italy while in Korea authorities seem to ran more vigorously tests. So the latter might have much more accurate numbers than the former.

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

#95

Post by nostromo » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #62

T-A wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3.65% / 1.75% ~ 2.09, so the difference in age profile might explain a factor 2 in the mortality ratio of Italy vs South Korea. The actual ratio is currently 7.9: 827 out of 12462 cases in Italy (6.6%), 66 out of 7869 cases in South Korea (0.84%).

A large number of South Korea infections are even younger due to how it spread. Italy: Above 80: 1,532 (18.4)% vs age 20-29: 296 (0.0)% South Korea: Above 80: 243 (3.1)% age 20-29: 2,261 (28.7)% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_S... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_I... Of note, neither country has had anyone under 30 die. Deaths in the 80+ age range are 8.23% in So…

I'm not sure how the media should report on deaths over 80, or even over 90.

It's not that old people aren't worthy of protection, but when you're 85 in the US you have a 10% chance of dying in the next year for any and all reasons.

So saying this disease kills 15% (for example) of 80+ year olds without context sounds horrific, but contextualized in the actual risks of just being very old to begin with, sounds much less scary.

If Italy, for example, were to report on the number of fatal infections in people younger than the natural life expectancy, the fatality rate would drop in half.

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

#96

Post by taeric » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

tomerico wrote: post #10

Italy has an older population, hence more susceptible to deaths and spreading of the virus: - Average age of death due to Coronavirus in Italy is 82 [1] - In Italy, 3.65% of the population is 80 or older [2]. - In Korea, 1.75% of the population is 80 or older [3] [1] https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/covid-19... [2] https://www.populationpyramid.net/italy/2019/ [3] https://www.populationpyramid.net/…

The part of Italy hit also has air quality, per aqi searches, that is comparable to the region in China that was hit hard.

Have people looked that it is not age, but baseline damage to your lungs that is the main factor in serious cases? Older people will have more exposure to local air pollution, just from having lived longer. That existing damage can be what contributes to complications, right?

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

#97

Post by yongjik » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 10:06 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?

Japan simply isn't testing enough patients, so I would wait a few weeks before judging how well they did.

That said, inconceivably they don't have many serious cases. (If the virus was really spreading exponentially, we'd certainly see a lot more patients, tests or no tests.) So they must be doing something right. It's just hard to tell if they could keep it this way.

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

#98

Post by T-A » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

skmurphy wrote: post #32

T-A wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3.65% / 1.75% ~ 2.09, so the difference in age profile might explain a factor 2 in the mortality ratio of Italy vs South Korea. The actual ratio is currently 7.9: 827 out of 12462 cases in Italy (6.6%), 66 out of 7869 cases in South Korea (0.84%).

If you factor in collapse of medical services -- Italy ran out of ventilators / ICU beds--the gap becomes clearer. You have to look at over 60 as more likely to be hospitalized, putting strain on medical system.

As far as I can tell from the media, Italy has not run out of intensive care units yet. See e.g. this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/italy-coronaviru...

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

#99

Post by Goladus » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #33

> South Korea has since reported 67 deaths out of nearly 8,000 confirmed cases, after testing more than 222,000 people. In contrast, Italy has had 1,016 deaths and identified more than 15,000 cases after carrying out more than 73,000 tests on an unspecified number of people. Surely the testing is a huge factor. Test more people you'll find more people infected, so the fatality rate will get smaller. If you're like th…

Edit: If you're saying that the "reported" death rate "appears" lower based on reported statistics, then yes testing more people can make it seem like the actual death rate is lower. Otherwise:

> 67 deaths out of nearly 8,000 cases

> 1,016 deaths and identified more than 15,000

> Surely the testing is a huge factor.

No, you can not be sure at all, especially since it is well-known that hospitals have limited capacity to treat pneumonia (ventilators and doctors trained to use them). Get sick when hospital has no capacity to treat you, and you're more likely to die. Death rate will increase very rapidly when rates of infection pass a certain point.

Testing is important, yes, but the real important part is slowing the transmission rate to a manageable level.

> If you could quickly and accurately test everyone in the country today we would know how to isolate and the whole thing would be over very soon.

Only if you can do it more-or-less completely. Otherwise, you're actually prolonging the problem. The reason we want to slow the transmission of the virus is to keep life-threatening cases at a reasonably low rate.

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

#100

Post by pmoriarty » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

snewman wrote: post #87

pascalxus wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't understand how knowing that you have the virus makes it less likely that you will die from it. There's no cure right? and at this point, anyone with a flu or cold will assume they have it and act accordingly, right?

It doesn't change the actual odds, it changes the perceived / measured odds. Imagine 100 people contract the virus, 10 develop serious symptoms, and one dies. In country A, with widespread testing, 40 of the 100 are identified. The visible statistics are 40 cases, one death, death rate of 2.5%. In country B, with poor testing, only the 10 with serious symptoms are identified. The visible statistics are 10 cases, one…

It also changes how people react and what they do.

Right now I see so many people carrying on their life as usual, because they think there aren't many infected people around them. That impression is a consequence of the lack of testing. It's likely that there are quite a few people around them who are sick and spreading this disease, and if more people realized that they'd act differently.

Resources and isolation measures are also directed to places where there are a lot of known infections, but if those infections are undetected very little gets done about them.

The relative lack of testing is a nightmare in the making.