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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

#631

Post by willyt »

mackrevinack wrote: post #571
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…

and it doesn't help that italians have a tradition of kissing each other on the cheek, twice, when they meet

On the other hand, Italy has very good food hygiene standards, as anyone who has been told off for touching the fruit and veg in the grocers can tell you. You never have a shop assistant handle money and then touch food, which you see all the time in the UK/US

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#632

Post by rjtavares »

nostromo wrote: post #180
furyofantares wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only 150 cases in AU at the time Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson got it. Only a thousand in the US when two NBA players got it. Only 150 in Canada when the Prime Minister's wife got it. Only 150 cases in Brazil when the press secretary got it. These people certainly have more exposure to other humans than most people do. But not so much that they should be making up whole percentages of the infected population. I believe t…

There are two sides of that coin. One side: it's much more widespread than we realize. Other side: it's much more mild and less fatal than we first thought.

The fatality number is irrelevant. We know it overwhelms health systems, and there's no ICU capacity to handle it.

That's all you need tk knoe.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#633

Post by tomohawk »

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…

China didn't just drop the ball, they literally went after anyone who tried to tell them there was a ball.

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/wuhan-doctors-sa...

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#634

Post by learnstats2 »

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…

Part of the problem here is that people see this as a competition between nations, i.e. arbitrarily defined borders.

China has implemented measures that have objectively worked: that have effectively contained an outbreak of this disease within their nation, despite having had the least knowledge and warning, and within a short amount of time. So, this is a good model to follow, in the absence of any other.

Certain Western governments appear to have decided to stretch the limits of that model to protect their economy in the short-term.

That will potentially result in everyone across the globe suffering further outbreaks.

Your assumption that drugs will save us is not safe. Novel drug development may be quick, or it may take decades.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#635

Post by Renaud »

coliveira wrote: post #198
zozbot234 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The very end of December" was 20+ days prior to the Wuhan lockdown, which was was essentially the only instance where China officially acknowledged the disease - before then, the local government was having police caution their doctors and scientists not to talk or "spread untrue rumors" about it. In the meantime, people in Wuhan and elsewhere were just hanging out as usual with no social distancing behaviors whatso…

People are very quick to blame Chinese officials, but I think they were correct in avoiding panic before knowing for sure the true dimensions of the problem they had at hand. The government has its credibility at stake: if you start using harsh measures without evidence, you lose credibility for the next time it is really needed.

You have to be kidding.

They were correct in threatening a doctor who reported what he saw (facts) to retract his statements as being _false_?

The local government didn't want to believe in the threat and wanted very much to keep any negative news hushed out of fear of looking bad to the central government.

So there you have it, a country governed by fear where people prefer to hide issues instead of quickly seeking help.

They could have done it through internal channels, without the public knowing but no, they crushed the messengers and tried to hide the facts until it was too late.

The central government admitted it itself: https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1506445-20200203.h...

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#636

Post by [deleted] »

syshum wrote: post #628
mft_ wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it's temporary?

Lost liberty is never temporary, once lost it is lost forever. Government never roll back control they have ceased. Look at the after effects of 9/11, those provisions where to be "temporary" yet have been renewed endlessly and will always be renewed

[deleted]

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#637

Post by psychlops »

sdkaufman wrote: post #607
antpls wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because it worked. Millions of lives have been saved - 1% of 1.3B is 13M people. That's 1/5 of Italy. This is an inacurrate estimation. I guess your figure of 1% is from South Korea case fatality rate. The confirmed cases represent a biased sample of the population, and the mortality rate could be lower in reality (but not higher). > consider the economic impact of 13M people suddenly dying. The mortality is mainly…

> This is an inacurrate estimation. Sure, the actual number will likely be different for each country / state / city, but doesn't really matter for the sake of the argument. I was using 1% as a lowball number. Official mortality rate from the WHO is 3-4%; some studies say 2%, Italy is reporting 7%. And for those 80+, current data suggests a mortality rate of 1/7 - not far off from a round of Russian roulette. So if y…

Here's a quote from the first link you have:

"That means the total number of reported cases is very likely an underestimate—and by not counting many mild or asymptomatic cases, we’re likely overestimating the disease’s overall mortality rate."

It is not possible to know the mortality rate with the information we have. Extrapolating that dubious number into a prediction of deaths is not a meaningful exercise.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#638

Post by jfkebwjsbx »

cknoxrun wrote: post #104
kyawzazaw wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am just super curious. Do your startup employees need physical infrastructure or deal with super confidential data that require them to be on site? Do you not trust them the employees to work their part on their own?

They can work from home. But I'm learning from this thread, that being in a rather northern location where no one in the entire city has started working from home is not the norm. Again, it was only yesterday that the government gave any official guidance on travel or gatherings of people.

If your government gave no official guidance at all, then you would do nothing.

If other companies did nothing, then you would do nothing.

Interesting. Entrepreneurs are usually way more forward thinking.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#639

Post by c789a123 »

SZJX wrote: post #589
c789a123 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the above comments that China is not a model to follow at all but the true sole responder for today's situation. From the number of people and the wide range of field and institutions signing this letter, I suspect a very strong CCP secret united action behind it to paint a good picture for CCP reputation. The most probably org that manipulated this letter is the so called "Chinese Students and Scholar O…

Not sure if this is a parody or not. So in your logic anything good being said about CCP is surely their propaganda, and they can do nothing else but being evil and destroying the world? Well I have bad news for you: the world is probably not as black-and-white, good vs. evil as you think. They do some stuffs wrong or at least controversial, and also some others right, or effective, just like every other political en…

WHO? Italy lockdown its cities on Mar 9, and WHO declares wuhan virus pandemic on Mar 11. Before that, WHO discourages country to take effective measures and cut out traffic with China. Luckily, not all countries are fooled by this idiotic org and take its own measures. Taiwan, who is not even a member of WHO, took good measures and protected itself. Unfortunately Italy and other European countries are fooled and cut out traffic too late. That is the result of they trusted CCP and WHO too much.

Chinese Economy? Is the gain worth all the environmental damage and pollution everywhere?

If CCP gov is like the other political entity, would it when having a SARS outbreak in 2003, make an even bigger one like wuhan virus outbreak and do even worse cover up to spread it around the world?

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#640

Post by c789a123 »

licebmi__at__ wrote: post #286
c789a123 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The doctors were not jailed, because luckily CCP need them to work to fight the virus. Some of them died for it already, mostly due to the hard work, insufficient protection CCP provided to the doctors, and in one case at least, intentionally punish the doc by delay his treatment. Talking about the origin of this virus, this paper of 2015 is quite interesting: https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985 . In this paper,…

"the people who sign this letter are not aware that they're being manipulated by CCP, in the meantime, let me push conspiracy theories".

I said in my comment clearly it is a hypothesis. While it is important and useful to think logically the Euclidean way, it is also important to find clues and make hypothesis, that is how people discover things in the real world.

Without information about how this letter was prepared and signed among these people in detail, my hypothesis stands.

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