This post does not feel like it rose naturally to the top of HN
Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community
81–90 of 740 posts
Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community
#82The last part urges lockdowns like China and South Korea but my understanding is that South Korea has not been doing lockdowns and instead was able to ramp up testing quickly and isolate infected from others. Is that incorrect?
Yes but Western countries are past the point where that is effective.
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop...
> The lengths at which it went to contain the virus are mind-boggling. For example, they had up to 1,800 teams of 5 people each tracking every infected person, everybody they got interacted with, then everybody those people interacted with, and isolating the bunch. That’s how they were able to contain the virus across a billion-people country.
> This is not what Western countries have done. And now it’s too late.
Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community
#83Not sure why this is on the number 1 spot currently. This is a letter signed by non-experts (albeit sometimes scientists/engineers). To me, it comes off as the climate-change denier letters or 9/11 "truthers" letters. Please let the experts do their job. Don't spread uninformed opinions backed up by Facebook posts and panicked researchers with expertise "relevant to virus spreading" such as electronics, architecture…
You don't need expertise beyond elementary school math to understand cases doubling every 2 to 3 days is very, very bad. Look at the charts for any of the countries. They all follow the same pattern.
The US is going to look like France and Italy in a week, 10 days at the most. This is a certainty.
Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community
#84As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the w…
Just like China, there was a time when Italy had 1 case, then 2 cases, then 4, etc. Italy was unable to stop the spread before reaching a huge level and spreading to other countries. Why blame China for "allowing this virus to spread all around the world" when Italy allowed the same? (Italy even had a warning that it was coming!)
I blame my own government for this, of course, the same that's getting all the praise and the "calls to responsiblity" from the press.
When we had the first cases its only concern was whether a minority party would leave the coalition or not.
It wasn't fit for the emergency, any emergency. Unfortunately, that's what we will be stuck with until it's over.
Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community
#85Not sure why this is on the number 1 spot currently. This is a letter signed by non-experts (albeit sometimes scientists/engineers). To me, it comes off as the climate-change denier letters or 9/11 "truthers" letters. Please let the experts do their job. Don't spread uninformed opinions backed up by Facebook posts and panicked researchers with expertise "relevant to virus spreading" such as electronics, architecture…
By "experts" you mean the WHO who delayed declaring it an pandemic for more than a month? I think we're beyond experts already... it's time for leadership, decisive action after experts have failed across the board.
What changed when they declared it a pandemic (i.e. when it meet some necessarily arbitrary bureaucratic definition)? Nothing much. Any government that was holding its breath waiting for this declaration is not listening to its experts anyway.
Stop doing the internet equivalent of running around like a chicken with your head cut off. This is absolutely the Yinge to listen to experts, also known as people who know what they're talking about at a level much deeper than a few weeks' worth of regurgitated Reddit posts.
Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community
#86As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the w…
> Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world.
That's not alarming.
What's alarming is that the Chinese regime admitted that the people who they placed in charge of the crisis response have been continuously lying and falsely reporting the real amount of victims and how far the disease has spread. They've done it jus prior of replacing them, but the Chinese regime just replaced them with loyalist party officials, which makes it sound like a desperate attempt to keep falsifying reports.
Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community
#87The time shifted rates of growth tell a compelling story, along with the fact that 1000 people out of 10000 required hospitalization. That is certainly statistically significant. I am now concerned that my birth country, the UK, has the wrong response. UK hospitals will not be able to handle that much traffic.
Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community
#88As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the w…
> Why on Earth is this a good model?
Pretty much all countries have mechanisms for emergency powers. China being authoritarian has nothing to do with it. I'm not familiar with Italy's constitution or laws, but I assume it has similar provisions?
> Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world.
Huh? On the one hand you're arguing China was too draconian (and Italy shouldn't copy), then a sentence later you're complaining it wasn't enough and this is all China's fault?
What exactly do you suggest China ought to have done to prevent it from spreading outside of China? I haven't heard any reputable source suggest there was any practical way of containing it perfectly.
Your comment comes across as knee-jerk anti-China rather than anything based in science or public policy.
Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community
#89Just from the start already i dont get a scientific feeling. "In just 3 weeks from the beginning of the outbreak, the virus has reached more than 10.000 infected people." Does this mean only tested 10.000 people? Reads a bit odd though too, i assume they were not infected already when the virus reached them? "From our data, about 10% of patients require ICU (Intensive Care Unit) or sub ICU assistance and about 5% of…
>Does this mean only tested 10000 people?
Italian health services have tested more than 50k people (the number of tests is over 60k but some people got tested more than once). More than 12k were infected. This is likely to be an underestimate, since we know a lot of infections are asymptomatic.
Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community
#90As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the w…
"China could afford to take the economical hit"
The faster and better that you deal with it, the smaller the economic hit is going to be. China is going to be the big winner here.