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

reuters.com

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

#121

Post by treis »

yongjik wrote: post #97
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.

Italy is not admitting anyone over 65 or with comorbitidities to the ICU due to lack of space. That's not something you can hide in any open society. Nor is senior politicians dying like happened in Iran.

For whatever reason Italy and Iran are doing much much worse than any other country. My WAG is the wide spread use of masks in Asia is the biggest differentiating factor.

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

#122

Post by 3JPLW »

codeulike wrote: post #119
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/…

A big part of the answer is in the article: SK have tested 5 times more people so picked up more mild cases in their stats

Yeah, but they've also been able to significantly slow the spread, growing at what looks to be closer to 10% day-over-day (doubling every week). Most everywhere else is seeing 25-35% (doubling every 2-3 days).

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

#123

Post by Goladus »

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…

You are correct, though though actually more complex than this.

1. Death from complications takes some time. You won't really know the real numbers until enough time has passed for the serious cases to resolve one way or the other.

2. Treatment makes a difference. Odds of death increase dramatically when treatment is not available.

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

#124

Post by kjakm »

christoph wrote: post #108
arcturus17 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen English politicians constantly boast on TV that they've caught it very early and they've done better than anyone in the world...

As a UK citizen I am honestly terrified by my governments response and actions. In years to come I fear it’s going to be the textbook example of exactly how not to manage these types of situations.

I thought that - but then I watched today's press conference with the chief scientific adviser and chief medical adviser. They made some very good cases for not locking stuff down just yet.

Primarily you need to consider the behaviour of people. This is going to go on for a while no matter what we do and if we lockdown people now, by the time we hit the peak they will be ready to give up and go outside again. We need to save the drastic measures for the peak in order to spread the damage out and make sure they are effective. I was previously critical of the government but honestly I think it makes a lot of sense.

We need to consider the effectiveness of measures. Banning all flights into the US from Europe may sound like a grand plan but in reality it's not going to make a big dent and the economic damage is going to be huge. But it sounds good and in the current climate where we're being led by panic that's the plan people will like.

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

#125

Post by joe_the_user »

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…

A large number of South Korea infections are even younger due to how it spread.

Another possibility is that Italy doesn't have a handle on who is or isn't infected so what they report are the obvious infections, who tend to be older.

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

#126

Post by tpush »

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…

> Italy is the second "oldest" country in the world after Japan [..]

By median age Germany is actually older than Italy, though. Not sure how age really correlates here.

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

#127

Post by joe_the_user »

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…

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 the US and test very few you get the huge fatality rates we saw in Washington.

Uh, yes, South Korea testing lots of people shows the overall fatality rate given a functioning medical system. It also allows much better isolation, understanding of the progression of the disease, stopping that progression and so-forth. So sure, the Korea rates don't prove Korea has magic dust that cures the problem but shows the Korean model is effective.

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

#128

Post by tomcooks »

elorant wrote: post #94
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%).

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.

More rigorous tests than Italy, seriously?

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

#129

Post by flukus »

nostromo wrote: post #95
Retric wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

> 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.

Some of the people that die from this would have died anyway, but for the most part this is on top of that 10% chance. Same for young people, there's something like a 0.2 chance of death every year and this is basically doubling that.

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

#130

Post by dominotw »

dceddia wrote: post #23
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.

For others wondering about the story behind Patient 31, here’s an article with a timeline: https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-SOUTHKOREA-CLUSTER...

not sure if i missed it but did patient 31 recover?
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