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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

#381

Post by J-dawg »

virtualritz wrote: post #366
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/…

Something that is not much talked about is the fact that many people apparently die from a sepsis (bacterial) that is caused by the primary infection. In Italy, it is almost customary to pop medication that contains antibiotics whenever you feel a bit under the weather. I lived in Italy, I experienced this first hand even from my more educated friends. Because of this Italians have an antibiotics resistance of 26.8%…

This is fascinating, I didn't know that data about antibiotic resistance was available like this, and definitely had no idea there was such huge variation between countries.

Surely this should be considered a major public health emergency in itself?

Are the countries with high percentages taking steps to limit antibiotic use? Coming from the UK the idea of letting people buy antibiotics as easily as painkillers seems crazy.

And what the hell is going on in Greece!?

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

#382

Post by selimthegrim »

2rsf wrote: post #329
selimthegrim wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The surgeon general just gave a press conference in Baton Rouge with the governor of Louisiana saying we should only test people (or prioritize testing of) people with symptoms. This when we know asymptomatic people can be contagious for days. The Port of New Orleans is testing embarking cruise ship passengers but not disembarking (!) ones. This when we have community spread in the parish already and have gone from 1…

> we know asymptomatic people can be contagious for days Although it is technically correct, this is the least contagious way. AFAIK most sick people were near sick persons for a considerable amount of time. [0] https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/kenkou_iryo...

Your link is giving a 404. (It looks like it's pasted in twice.) And with regard to the cruise ships, see Question 13 of your linked FAQ.

It seems false positives are a real thing [1] but can we afford even one asymptomatic infected individual that might be a super spreader? In shifting away from containment are we just accepting these?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22566923

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

#383

Post by J-dawg »

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.

One thing I don't understand is how the UK infection rate has stayed so low up until now. It seems to be pretty much blind luck.

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

#384

Post by bad_user »

makomk wrote: post #368
imtringued wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they test random people or only people with symptoms? If the latter then your distribution is heavily biased and a 10x difference is not an outlier, it's the expected outcome.

According to those stats 14% of people tested were positive and of those, about half had to be admitted to hospital. It's clearly very far from a random sample.

Also keep in mind that the false negatives for the tests is pretty high, because the tests require a significant viral load in the blood and in some cases it can take several days after the symptoms set in.

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

#385

Post by unethical_ban »

snarf21 wrote: post #380
zanny wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is quite likely that U.S. will nationalize health care as a response to this crisis. If you think half the country infected with a virus and a million deaths is enough to topple a several hundred billion dollar insurance racket that has endured for over half a century exploiting health and wellbeing for profit... I wish we would get single payer out of this, but the plague of greed in medicine is way too deep to…

I agree although the racket is more like a trillion. It is not just the insurance (payors) but also all the brokers and other rent seekers. I think there is 0% chance of nationalized health care in the US. Look at Obamacare; it didn't really work and took forever to get passed and most of the regulations have been rolled back. There are other things that I think could fix our health care and actually get passed and s…

That mindset is a bit self-defeating, isn't it? I wonder if people thought we would have public schooling in the country 150 years ago, or that blacks could go to school with whites 100 years ago. Or that Germany would be the largest economy in Europe as a democratic republic, 70 years ago.

Things take time.

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

#386

Post by mightypirate »

virtualritz wrote: post #366
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/…

Something that is not much talked about is the fact that many people apparently die from a sepsis (bacterial) that is caused by the primary infection. In Italy, it is almost customary to pop medication that contains antibiotics whenever you feel a bit under the weather. I lived in Italy, I experienced this first hand even from my more educated friends. Because of this Italians have an antibiotics resistance of 26.8%…

antibiotics are not available over the counter in Italy

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

#387

Post by hrktb »

mantap wrote: post #263
m_mueller wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is another factor as well: have a look at train stations during rush hour on East Asia currently vs. Europe. 1) the density is significantly higher but 2) nearly everyone is wearing surgical masks now. I think that mask wearing is an effective measure to slow down the spread, acting at the sender side rather than the receiver (which Western people tend to focus on). You can see a similarly lower exponen…

Part of the problem is that pretty much everybody in East Asia already owned at least one mask. In Europe pretty much nobody owned a mask prior to COVID-19. And masks have been sold out for weeks. If masks were easily available you'd see people wearing them I'm sure.

This is partly an effect of cultural issues related to immunity and how it's perceived in most europe countries.

Even putting aside the whole deliberate sharing germs and force building body resistance, wearing a mask is seen as anti-social, somewhat selfish, weak and alarming.

People's reactions to a mask is really ranging from "you shouldn't wear it at all, we're among friends (at work)" to "if you're that ill you shouldn't get out of your home and take a sick leave". There few middle ground, accepting wearing a mask just in a case, or for some benign infection.

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

#388

Post by harrier »

selimthegrim wrote: post #382
2rsf wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we know asymptomatic people can be contagious for days Although it is technically correct, this is the least contagious way. AFAIK most sick people were near sick persons for a considerable amount of time. [0] https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/kenkou_iryo...

Your link is giving a 404. (It looks like it's pasted in twice.) And with regard to the cruise ships, see Question 13 of your linked FAQ. It seems false positives are a real thing [1] but can we afford even one asymptomatic infected individual that might be a super spreader? In shifting away from containment are we just accepting these? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22566923

His link had the url twice concatenated. If you remove that part then it works [1]. Here is a google translation of the relevant section:

> Although the possibility of transmission from an asymptomatic person has been reported （https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2001468）, little is known on how Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spreads from person to person. Generally speaking, with most respiratory viruses, people are thought to be most contagious when they are most symptomatic. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/transmission...

That CDC link [2] states that:

> People are thought to be most contagious when they are most symptomatic (the sickest). Some spread might be possible before people show symptoms; there have been reports of this occurring with this new coronavirus, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.

[1] https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/kenkou_iryo...

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/transmission...

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

#389

Post by TeMPOraL »

Cantbekhan wrote: post #375
TeMPOraL wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That disagrees with all the information that has been coming out of Italy for the last three days . Perhaps because hospitals there (and in general) are always running at 80-100% capacity, so it didn't take much for the extra COVID-19 cases to max them out.

Indeed most EU ICU services are already usually running at around 90% with the usual issues (including the Flu). And please also do consider that most of theses cases are within the Lombardy region and that most ICU patients are very difficult if not impossible to transfer safely to other regions. While the ICU beds are limited, the amount of ambulances equipped with ICU equipment is probably even smaller (and will a…

And then there is looming material shortage.

For instance, in my home town (Kraków, Poland), hospitals cancelled planned procedures yesterday - not due to the amount of COVID-19 patients itself (Poland still has double-digit number of reported cases), but because the hospitals run out masks, gowns and gloves. Which means that once coronavirus patients start appearing, things will get really ugly real fast.

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

#390

Post by selimthegrim »

harrier wrote: post #388
selimthegrim wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your link is giving a 404. (It looks like it's pasted in twice.) And with regard to the cruise ships, see Question 13 of your linked FAQ. It seems false positives are a real thing [1] but can we afford even one asymptomatic infected individual that might be a super spreader? In shifting away from containment are we just accepting these? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22566923

His link had the url twice concatenated. If you remove that part then it works [1]. Here is a google translation of the relevant section: > Although the possibility of transmission from an asymptomatic person has been reported （ https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2001468） , little is known on how Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spreads from person to person. Generally speaking, with most respiratory virus…

As to my second point, the Japanese are not letting people disembark cruise ships willy-nilly without being tested as per that link
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