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Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

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Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#111

Post by cobookman »

Ninjak8051 wrote: post #92

The handwaving arguments in this letter are not convincing (especially the "You do also understand that, as long as the rate of increase is exponential, no linear solution to contrast it will work (I.e. increasing x times the number of ICU machines, etc.)" nonsense). The stats in this very letter indicate that 10% of patients require ventilators, which cost about $4000. So even if the entire population were sick at t…

If you take every potential apocalyptic scenario and stockpile supplies. It’d add up to much more than 400$/resident.

The real shame is globalization. If manufacturing occurred in Europe. In North America...etc. we’d all just quickly ramp up our respirator production.

Instead the west outsourced this to China

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#112

Post by jennyyang »

nexuist wrote: post #103
tuna-piano wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!)

Doctors and civilians tried to sound the alarm that something was going on, and were silenced until it was too late. To their credit, the CCP fired the Wuhan officials who presumably silenced those people, but it is still their responsibility for fostering a culture where towing the line and hiding problems until they cannot be hidden is acceptable for leadership positions.

There's nothing to credit. Everyone was in on the silencing, the CCP only used those officials as scapegoats. Everyone on all levels of politics was keeping this a secret and hoping it would go away.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#113

Post by scarmig »

Ninjak8051 wrote: post #92

The handwaving arguments in this letter are not convincing (especially the "You do also understand that, as long as the rate of increase is exponential, no linear solution to contrast it will work (I.e. increasing x times the number of ICU machines, etc.)" nonsense). The stats in this very letter indicate that 10% of patients require ventilators, which cost about $4000. So even if the entire population were sick at t…

We've stockpiled some number of ventilators in the USA (though still likely insufficient for the task at hand). The bigger issue is the labor needed to staff them, which has very limited scalability.

I wonder how hard it is, and how quickly a moderately intelligent person could be brought up to speed (at least enough to get better outcomes than just leaving the patient to die).

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#115

Post by kspacewalk2 »

yelloweyes wrote: post #23
iRobbery wrote: post #16

Just 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…

Who cares. The point is to get people out of their comfortable complacency. Read this one: "We are now in the tragic situation that the most efficient health system of the richest area of the country (Lombardy) is almost at its full capacity and will soon be difficult to assist more people with Covid-19."

I care. These doom and gloom shrieks and exhortations for President Madagascar to Shut. Down. Everything are distracting from the real work governments have to do to tackle this severe and protracted crisis in a competent manner, i.e. following the advice of real, not collective-letter experts.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#116

Post by FiberBundle »

wnkrshm wrote: post #68
bsaul wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i wish more countries did randomized testing over its whole population, or extensive testing, like SK.

Exactly. I don't see how trying to limit testing to people who had contact with known cases or traveled to at risk countries (as practiced in Germany) can be successful.

If the availability of testing kits is low and the ratio of infected to non infected people is extremely low, it makes absolutely no sense to sample randomly from the population.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#117

Post by scarmig »

Camillo wrote: post #51

This is not "from Italy", it's been organized by a far-left Italian magazine. Yes, they are "from Italy", but the title is disingenuous and misleading. Note that the page lists "the editors" (of the magazine) as the authors, and the first signature is by the magazine's publisher. The rest appear to be various academic personalities they have reached out to, many of them not from Italy or in Italy. As for the contents…

Agreed, though you can find letters from individual Italian medical professionals saying about the same thing. Most authoritative would be a letter from the government of Italy or the equivalent of the AMA.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#118

Post by ksec »

mjoin wrote: post #62
tuna-piano wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!)

you're missing that China initially suppressed info abt this virus, which caused it to spread. had they reacted immediately, we might be in a much better situation rn

>you're missing that China initially suppressed info abt this virus

Not only that, refuse to acknowledge, or share any information to international communities. The amount of things they do just to saves faces.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#119

Post by troughway »

delegate wrote: post #46

I've seen comments here trying to play down the message or discredit the signatories of this letter. Don't. Please take it seriously. This is not sensationalism. What the letter means is that if your country is not there yet, you might be DAYS away from widespread panic and total lock down. I'm writing this from Barcelona, Spain. This last Sunday, 6 days ago, I went on a walk with my girlfriend, had a nice lunch, too…

>6 days later, we're at over 6000 infections, the country is in total lock down.

Similar anecdote here.

My SO texted me earlier this week saying how she will be taking the train from Madrid to Barcelona to go back to her family. She figured it will be empty on Sunday at 6 am.

I have been following the situation evolve in Italy and told her to get on the train right away and leave immediately before it gets worse.

Luckily, the next day she was on the train. The lockdowns started happening shortly afterwards.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#120

Post by mirimir »

sorum wrote: post #93
mirimir wrote: post #37

Maybe Italy is a worst case, both because it didn't quarantine early enough, and because greater population inversion. > It's now a well-established fact that older people and those with underlying health issues are more susceptible to succumbing to Covid-19. With 23 percent Italians aged 65 or above and a median age of 47.3, the Italian population is the oldest in Europe. This is chiefly responsible for the high fat…

Italy isn't the worst case, they're just 2 weeks' ahead of most other countries. Looking at the latest SitRep from WHO, my home country (Sweden) has small no. infected (775), but grew 25% vs the previous day. If that rate keeps up, number of infected will keep on doubling every 4-5 days and in 14 days' time will be at what Italy is today (17k infected). And then another week later it'll break 100k. Exponential growth…

True.

But still, maybe Italy is a worst case.

Trying to be optimistic here, being >70 and all ;)

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