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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

#361

Post by majos »

toolz wrote: post #281
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…

what's the source for italy being the oldest country? As of 2018 Germany was the oldest in the EU and their crude mortality ratio is among the lowest so far. https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/median-age/

That figure may be “% of population >= 85 years old”, where Italy does lead the EU. See p21 in this report [1] from Eurostat for a breakdown by country. About 3.45% of Italy is at least 85, compared to about 2.75 for Germany. That’s about 40% higher.

So Italy is older in the sense of “more people who are very old”. But you are right that the mortality difference so far is not explained entirely by this gap.

It may be informative to watch how this evolves in Greece, and to a greater extent (due to more infection before a lockdown) France and Spain. Those are the next oldest countries in the EU by this measure, and all are well above 3%.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/10166544/KS-...

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#362

Post by hatenberg »

kilroy_jones wrote: post #342
tormeh wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. No self-preserving politician wold have reacted early to this. And you don't get to that level without being self-preserving.

Taiwan's leadership, ahem. Only 50 or so cases and their approval rating has soared.

Same in Singapore. Helps having well paid experts run your government and a PM who definitely understands Math (Cambridge Senior Wrangler)

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#363

Post by jacquesm »

sk5t wrote: post #355
jacquesm wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point of my comment. A bat infecting a pig or some other two step is a pre-cursor to many Zoonotic events. Those wet markets are indeed a huge accelerator. But the pre-conditions exist in many places and all it takes is one butcher that isn't paying attention and you've got the ball rolling. Africa and Asia have a lot of this and so are a recurring theme in these very unfortunate stories. But it c…

> one butcher that isn't paying attention What are you suggesting exactly--that a slightly inattentive butcher wouldn't notice the difference between a leg of pork and a bat?

No, that there is a typical one-two step to a Zoonotic event where the jump from a reservoir animal to an animal that is regularly consumed is made.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_reservoir

For plenty of these events we do not know the reservoir animal (yet). So that butcher will know they are butchering a pig, not a bat. But that pig may have become infected and if the butcher isn't very careful he may infect himself and if the meat isn't prepared carefully it may infect those that consume it. And by the time we realize it has happened these important bits of data may have already been lost.

There is a very good book on the theme called 'Spillover', highly recommended and so far it seems to have been exactly on the money with how this whole thing unfolds. Uncanny actually, it is like having the spoiler for a movie that wasn't made yet.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#364

Post by dhosek »

tomp wrote: post #233
fma wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. And where is Trump's response? We don't even have enough testing kits. We had 2 months to ramp things up.

At least he closed the borders. Russia as well. EU can't even do that.

He did it in an ineffective way. US nationals were returning from the EU without any screening. And it was way too late. All a bunch of xenophobia theater.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#365

Post by fsckboy »

adrianmonk wrote: post #138
jakub_g wrote: post #5

> It’s hard for non-specialists to intuitively grasp the way an exponential rate increase can get out of control. The best way to explain the exponential growth (and shock people) is ask them about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem

I like the way a teacher explained it in grade school. She said to imagine we had a choice between two deals. One option is that someone would give us $100 each day for a month. The other is to receive 1 cent the first day, 2 cents the second day, 4 cents on the third day, doubling each day until a month has passed. Of course we all chose $100/day. Then she told us it was too bad we didn't take the other option, beca…

instead of pennies, she probably said $1 the first day, $2 the second, ... and then you would still have chosen the $100 a day, and not become billionaires.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#366

Post by xienze »

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…

> They’re saying we should do the stuff that China did, starting from the decisive action part

You do realize that some of their “decisive actions” included enforcing quarantine via welded-shut doors, right?[0] I don’t think you’re ready to handle the kind of “decisive action” that China took.

0: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1703503427818

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#367

Post by CydeWeys »

fattire wrote: post #276
on_and_off wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear that the situation is already at that state in the USA. There are 1600 confirmed cases but the lack of tests hides how many real infections there are.

Leaving aside the fact that here in the US tests are literally not happening on an epic scale that will be the subject of numerous investigations, hearings (, and prosecutions?) in the years to come. And forget that even if we had legit numbers, those numbers we can see are a tip of the iceberg, representing at most 20% of the actual more-serious cases. Put that all aside. Remember-- the numbers we see now are a look…

> If it is possible, STAY HOME.

People need to stay home, period. Unless you work in healthcare, a grocery store, or some essential service, or are going to one of the same, you need to stay home. I know there's lots of reasons people aren't staying home yet, like they don't have paid sick leave, but still, none of this overrides the sheer importance of stopping the pandemic.

So the phrasing should be "Stay home, period." Not "Stay home if possible".

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#368

Post by alisonatwork »

jacquesm wrote: post #306
hatenberg wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is really no excuse for this happening in Europe. There was ample warning and no, not just from China. The math was very clear by early/mid February. We have to face the truth that the quality of people we vote for government is not where it needs to be and that science has too long been discredited and ignored. Some of asia learned from SARS but that's it. Madrid was hosting marches, political rallies and socc…

The post-mortem (for want of a better term) on this will be pretty bad for some people in leadership positions. Assuming they survive. Very precious time was squandered with half-assed measures and uninformed decisions.

I am not holding out much hope for the people responsible for this to face consequences for their mismanagement. Here in China Xi Jinping has already been recast as the man who led the country to victory in the "people's war", mere weeks after widespread condemnation of his administration's disastrous failure to respond. Once the media switches their focus from outrage at the politicians to feel-good stories of community solidarity, people will forget how angry they were. The political elite will weather the storm, even as thousands die on their watch.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#369

Post by CydeWeys »

epistasis wrote: post #358
baron_harkonnen wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the interesting case where anecdote really does become data. If there are truly only 1,600 confirmed cases then hearing a few stories from a friend of a friend that they know people are sick should still be very unlikely. The fact that many people here and around the web are sharing stories of sick friends is are a set of anecdotes that would be nearly impossible if the reported numbers were correct. I suspec…

I think some napkin math with the number of celebrities and professional sports players, who presumably have far better access to testing than the US public (which has essentially zero access), would show that we are at least at 150k-200k infections, if not more. At least, immediately before Tom Hanks announced his infection, I saw some napkin math that showed that since no politicians, movie stars, or professional a…

Does this control for the fact that celebrities and politicians do way more travel and meet way more people?

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#370

Post by grecy »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #311
on_and_off wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear that the situation is already at that state in the USA. There are 1600 confirmed cases but the lack of tests hides how many real infections there are.

This is the interesting case where anecdote really does become data. If there are truly only 1,600 confirmed cases then hearing a few stories from a friend of a friend that they know people are sick should still be very unlikely. The fact that many people here and around the web are sharing stories of sick friends is are a set of anecdotes that would be nearly impossible if the reported numbers were correct. I suspec…

Canada has a population of 38 million, and only 150 confirmed cases.

But one of those cases is the Prime Minister's wife.

Do we really think there are only 150 cases?

It's obviously way, way, way higher than that.

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