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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

#141

Post by elorant »

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…

I had the same worries for Greece when in just two days recorded cases doubled from 100 to 200, but since the government imposed partial lockdown measures the rate of infections slowed down significantly. My guess is the same will happen everywhere. It's just that it's easier to see the growth slowing when you have an order of magnitude less incidents than Italy. We have to trust the process.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#143

Post by TeMPOraL »

nostromo wrote: post #99
VectorLock wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are not anywhere near the point where the panic of this virus is worse than the potential outcome of the virus. If anything there is not ENOUGH strong movement being made.

Yes, we need more panic. Maximum panic please! For a disease that has a 0.5% fatality rate, and the medium death age is over the average life expectancy of one's country. And most scientists believe we can't stop it anyway. Yes, let's burn down the modern world and suspend all civil rights for this.

Something something 20% hospitalization rate * number of infected people >> healthcare capacity of any country -> a lot more than 0.5% of fatalities, + all the other deaths for all other kinds of medical emergencies, which only happen because doctors have to aggressively triage patients.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#144

Post by tim333 »

jennyyang wrote: post #110
lbeltrame wrote: post #36

As 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…

Drugs are not a solution in the next 2-3 months. There's no way a drug can be tested and ensure safe and scaled up to the tens/hundreds of millions of doses you would need. It's impossible so don't even bother considering it. Quarantining is the only thing that will help in this situation. There's no other solution we have as a society to slow down the pace of infections. People who normally wouldn't die will die bec…

There are some existing drugs that help with the treatment but they don't really stop the infection spreading. Chloroquine / hydroxychloroquine are maybe the most useful.

Probably if they handed some out and told people to take a few as soon as they got a cough + some temperature it would help things. (http://news.southcn.com/nfplus/gdjktt/content/2020-03/09/con...)

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#145

Post by cameldrv »

jennyyang wrote: post #110
lbeltrame wrote: post #36

As 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…

Drugs are not a solution in the next 2-3 months. There's no way a drug can be tested and ensure safe and scaled up to the tens/hundreds of millions of doses you would need. It's impossible so don't even bother considering it. Quarantining is the only thing that will help in this situation. There's no other solution we have as a society to slow down the pace of infections. People who normally wouldn't die will die bec…

Drugs are a solution for mitigation. They already have a preliminary trial result in China that says Chloroquine works. South Korea agrees and I believe is combining it with Zinc. South Korea has the lowest fatality rate of any country.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#146

Post by lbeltrame »

goodcjw2 wrote: post #122
lbeltrame wrote: post #36

As 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…

First thing first, this is science, not politics. Everyone wants a drug and vaccine, but good science takes time to happen. Make no mistake, no one wants a lock down, but so far, it's the only option in the lack of a functional medical solution. If tons of scientists tell us lock down is the only option for now, we should'd listen rather than discredit them. Now, if someone really wants to move on to talk about polit…

I wouldn't view it as science vs politics. Science advises, correctly, the politicians. But the ultimate decision stays (for the good, or bad) with politics, because they have to balance things.

As I said elsewhere, a vaccine is likely less "important" in the immediate, especially because it can have far deeper side effects, and no test has been done on humans whatsoever, while most of the drugs are on Phase III (earliest data should arrive in April, at least for the studies I looked up).

Lock downs will help. But they will help in the future. They won't help the overloaded ICUs now, because they're getting now people who had been infected up to 14 days before. In case of no drugs, the alternative is getting makeshift hospitals in place to lessen the burden on the health system, and procure more equipment. However, just as the government was extremely fast in getting people locked in their homes, it was not for these things.

> It's about a nation as a whole can do the right thing, not about authoritarian vs. democracy.

It's hard to tell when the same government gives contradictory or confused statements. Some blamed "the ignorant masses" for the panic fleeing last Sunday, but in my view, people weren't just well equipped to understand (plus the early leak of the document) what was going on. The media also cherry picks the bad apples very well.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#147

Post by VectorLock »

cknoxrun wrote: post #94
VectorLock wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't bode well that you're so focused on getting checks that you've completely failed to observe the world around you.

I don't feel that snipe was necessary. I've expressed myself honestly, and no one acts perfectly in situations like this.

I appreciate you owning up to your myopic short comings and hopefully you'll correct that course before those that have hitched their carts to your wagon feel the ramifications.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#148

Post by alexandercrohde »

trashtester wrote: post #74
mensetmanusman wrote: post #2

As a physicist, it still feels odd to me they are talking about statistics with such confidence here. It seems only SK has earned that right and has tested enough people to get reliable statistics. If you only measure the sick in the hospital...

As a physicist, you are familiar with formulas similar to this: N_obs = p_detect * 2^( n_days / T_double ) N_obs : The number of observed cases p_detect : The fraction of actual cases that are detected (assumed to be constant) n_days : number of days T_double : The number of days it takes for the number of real cases to double If you examine the formula, the p_detect constant is almost insignificant. If T_double = 2,…

The point is that the mortality rate estimates are going to be totally out of whack without accurate measurements. As well as estimates of the currently infected.

This matters a lot. The first number is obviously important. The second matters so Italy can plan for whether things have peaked yet, or how many weeks out until it does.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#150

Post by kisna72 »

jbay808 wrote: post #105
mjoin wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's a very important point if we're discussing the upsides and downsides of censorship, or whether China is a bad country and should feel bad about itself. But if we're looking for an example of how to solve the pandemic, when people point to China as an example, they aren't saying "we should spend a few weeks pretending the virus doesn't exist, threaten doctors who talk about it, order our labs not to study it, a…

exactly. I don't understand why people are so eager to assign blame when in reality every one would be better of taking the good parts of what China did.
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