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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

#141

Post by Fnoord »

enitihas wrote: post #105
Fnoord wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

I mean if we have arrived at a point where majority of the people can't be convinced of the existence of this, and the only way to make them understand is to do some damage, we have bigger problems as a society in front of us. You don't throw a kid under a bus if he doesn't understand you, you just keep trying with incentives and maybe minor punishments.

It isn't about a popularity context. It only takes 1 harmful idiot (see the story behind Patient 31, linked elsewhere in this thread).

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

#142

Post by kjakm »

cvwright wrote: post #137
kjakm wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Until today, European airlines were flying empty “ghost” planes because they had no passengers, but they wanted to keep their landing slots. Yesterday I talked to a colleague who relayed the story of a transatlantic flight this week, where only 6 seats were filled, out of 36 in the section. I don’t think there’s much remaining travel left to be banned. The resulting economic impact therefore can’t be that big.

>> The resulting economic impact therefore can’t be that big.

The impact on the spread of the virus can't be that big either. My point though is that big flashy moves like banning all flights appear to do very little compared to more mundane tactics. At least based on the info in the press conference I'm referring to the data doesn't support flight bans, banning large gatherings etc.

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

#143

Post by tooltalk »

Aeolun wrote: post #115
magicsmoke wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the numbers aren't reliable, reports of Japanese intensive care units being overrun aren't easy to hide, but Japanese hospitals don't seem to be under the same pressure as hospitals in Italy. Making mask wearing more acceptable might be a cultural adjustment humanity has to make as we become more urbanized and globalized if it'll help reduce the severity of disease transmission. Looks like Japan's stumbled on…

Japan has a lot of intensive care units. I guess it comes with having a generally older population.

but not compared to other developed countries (except England):

          [1] [2]
  Germany 3.7 24.6
  France  3.3 9.3
  England 2.7 3.3
  USA     2.4 20
  Canada  2.4 13.5
  Japan   2.2 4 to 5
1. Ratio of physicians to patients (per 1,000 population)

2. Number of ICU beds (per 100,000 population)

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

#144

Post by skmurphy »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #140
skmurphy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My hypothesis is that Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore had to contend with earlier SARS outbreak and responded more quickly and comprehensively with contact tracing, social distancing.

and perhaps residual previous-exposure widely-disseminated immunity to the class of viruses?

I have not read anything that indicates a cross-immunity between the Wuhan 2019 SARS and Guangdong 2002 SARS.

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

#145

Post by Benmcdonald__ »

tomcooks wrote: post #128
elorant wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes and yes

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

#146

Post by Benmcdonald__ »

haunter wrote: post #45

I'm curious about the cultural differences. Physical contact, kiss on the cheek, is much more common in Italy than in Korea. That can play a huge factor.

Contact and hand holding are common in public in Korea. The opposite of Japan

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

#147

Post by paulryanrogers »

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…

Fatality numbers won't reflect those who developed permanent lung damage or had to go into intensive care.

Best not to suggest anything that might down play the seriousness considering how infectious this virus is. (Otherwise it may encourage risky behavior.)

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

#148

Post by Aeolun »

dsjoerg wrote: post #31
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.

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!"

It’s like the IT dilemma all over again.

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

#149

Post by pbourke »

tomcooks wrote: post #128
elorant wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> More rigorous tests than Italy, seriously?

SK leads the world. 3,692 / 1MM pop vs Italy 826 / 1MM pop.

Source: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/12/21175034/co...

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

#150

Post by marcinzm »

2019-nCoV wrote: post #13

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.

>These are the aspects of life most likely to change after this is all over.

People will forget about this in a year and go back to life like it's always been. Short term convenience trumps everything except short term negative consequences.

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