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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

#401

Post by joe_the_user »

zimmerfrei wrote: post #335
dr_dshiv wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if we assume a similar death rate, we could use the deaths to estimate how many are actually infected in Italy?

Yes, not only in Italy, but in most other places. This article explains well how deaths (or hospitalizations) are correlated to actual infections (most of which go unnoticed), and also why reduction of social interaction is effective but its effects take a while to show: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop...

Nice - or as satisfying as something can be under the horrible circumstances - this is exactly what I've been arguing here.

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

#402

Post by mitchdoogle »

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…

I'm surprised to hear someone be so blunt about their ageism. This thing has brought about a great deal of it already, with many saying, " it only affects the elderly" as if that's a worthwhile argument for not being too worried. Reminds one of indifference to AIDS in the 80s because it "only affects homosexuals"

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

#403

Post by _-___________-_ »

superpermutat0r wrote: post #374
_-___________-_ wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A far bigger factor in a disease like this, where 80%+ of people have mild illness, is all the people that were never recorded as cases because their symptoms were too mild or were non-existent. People want to use CFR as a measure of how worried they should be, or as some kind of comparison between countries, and it's totally inappropriate for either purpose.

If they are never recorded does that not mean they infect more people and that results in sicker population creating more burden to the health system - resulting in more deaths? The statistics always seem to go up no matter what kind of interpretation.

The point is that deaths - the numerator of the case fatality rate - are basically always recorded, whereas cases - the denominator of the case fatality rate - represent only a subset of the people that are infected.

When the health system is severely overburdened, that subset because a smaller and smaller proportion, as scarce resources are used for testing of people presenting at hospitals rather than population-based testing.

People who are asymptomatic or have minor symptoms don't present at a hospital, so they don't get tested, so they never get recorded as a case (which, by definition, requires a test and a diagnosis).

The real population fatality rates are guaranteed to be lower than the CFR unless you believe that every person who is infected is being tested and diagnosed, and it's my opinion that they'll be much lower.

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

#404

Post by rasz »

J-dawg wrote: post #383
christoph wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They dont test people, its that simple.

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

#405

Post by [deleted] »

WildGreenLeave wrote: post #279
mantap wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

At least in The Netherlands there are still plenty of masks to be found. You won't find the surgical masks anymore but masks for construction work is still plenty available. I think most europeans look down on wearing masks as something stupid, most europeans also think hand sanitizer is stupid. (This just applies to my dutch family and friends over there, I am currently in Thailand and always wearing a mask and hand…

[deleted]

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

#406

Post by Retric »

joe_the_user wrote: post #125
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…

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.

It’s unlikely that 14,000 infected 20-29 year olds where missed as a significant fraction end up in the ICU. Which means even if the ratio is off, the breakdowns are still significantly different.

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

#407

Post by ihaveajob »

irq11 wrote: post #226
ihaveajob wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Just 2 days ago I was talking to someone who was annoyed by people taking measures: "See, in China they're already seeing infections going down! No point in taking all these measures!" Without apparently realizing the reason why they're going down is extreme is precisely those extreme measures.

There’s not much evidence that the extreme “lockdown” decisions made by China had a significant impact on the outcome either way. Social distancing, contact tracing and isolation of the sick work well, and that was almost certainly the critical portion of the response. For example, this paper makes a solid argument that the travel ban delayed the epidemic across china by only a few days: https://science.sciencemag.or…

The problem with local, less aggressive measures is that people act in their self interest to bypass them for convenience or safety, and they make the problem worse. Recent examples:

- Lockdown in northern Italy: People ran to the south taking the virus with them. - Schools closing, folks asked to work from home in Madrid: Families drive to the coast where bars and restaurants are full.

I agree that in a place where compliance with social distance measures is high (I'm thinking South Korea, Japan), that would be enough. But that doesn't work everywhere.

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

#408

Post by therealx »

m_mueller wrote: post #214
ivanhoe wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also cultural differences, Italians like to hang out in groups, outside, personal space is much smaller, people hug and kiss and touch all the time. Also they're not really the most disciplined nation, lots of them simply ignored the safety rules, continued to go out, there were even some cases where infected people run away from quarantine. And additionally the spread of virus is not uniform as it depends…

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…

Except no one seems to wear them fully correctly, and a lot of people don't have the proper rating of mask. Not to mention theres a limited supply of masks.

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

#409

Post by scholia »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #276
scholia wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, but unless you can self-isolate, it's not going to last very long. If you got tested weekly, the costs would soon mount up.....

I'd hope to not have a fever weekly.

You can be infected without having a fever. That's one of the problems with coronavirus.

Knowing you have the virus won't save you, of course, but you will be able to react accordingly. That will include trying not to infect anyone else....

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

#410

Post by malandrew »

fab1an wrote: post #75

Italy got caught by surprise - they only found out that they had cases when a 38 year old (!) walked into an ER with advanced symptoms. Given that this age bracket is not commonly affected by these harsher symptoms it is clear that they had long ongoing community transmission which has now culminated in the current catastrophe. Germany is doing a bit better in this respect, it took them 1000 cases to 'get' the first…

> showing that they have caught it very very early, due to their decentralized testiing system

This is why I'm terrified of people that want to centralize things even more in the federal government.

Centralization produces systems that are not anti-fragile.

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