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Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

reuters.com

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Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#131

Post by tooltalk »

magicsmoke wrote: post #29
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

meh. I've been married to a Japanese for over 2 decades now, and lived in Tokyo for many years including when Fukushima happened. I wouldn't trust Japanese politicians with their reported numbers any more as I'd trust China or the US. There is one difference in Japan to Italy that might explain the lower infection rates: it's socially accepted to wear face masks (not only since covid but since the 90ies actually!)

Even if the numbers aren't reliable, reports of Japanese intensive care units being overrun aren't easy to hide, but Japanese hospitals don't seem to be under the same pressure as hospitals in Italy. Making mask wearing more acceptable might be a cultural adjustment humanity has to make as we become more urbanized and globalized if it'll help reduce the severity of disease transmission. Looks like Japan's stumbled on…

Japan's problem is a bit different -- it's estimated that there are 30+K old folks dying unnoticed in solitude every year (Kodokushi) in Japan, even without the Wuhan virus. As cynical as it may sound, that may be why Japan doesn't even bother testing their citizens for the virus.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/world/asia/japan-lonely-d...

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#132

Post by btilly »

tpush wrote: post #126
joe_the_user wrote: post #2

It's been making the argument that Korea's aggressive testing has allowed them greater control over the epidemic. Of course, there are a variety of other factors at work. Italy is the second "oldest" country in the world after Japan so Coronavirus infections just would be more deadly there. Also a lot of the Korean infections were confined to a single city in Korea (though the Italian infections also had an epicenter…

> Italy is the second "oldest" country in the world after Japan [..] By median age Germany is actually older than Italy, though. Not sure how age really correlates here.

Per https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-se... the number of deaths is very strongly correlated with how many are 70+.

Median and average don't matter. Density of senior citizens does.

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#133

Post by xorfish »

3JPLW wrote: post #122
codeulike wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of the answer is in the article: SK have tested 5 times more people so picked up more mild cases in their stats

Yeah, but they've also been able to significantly slow the spread, growing at what looks to be closer to 10% day-over-day (doubling every week). Most everywhere else is seeing 25-35% (doubling every 2-3 days).

New cases in SK are on a downward trend for around 10 days now. They achieved a reproduction value that is quite a bit below for at least the last 3 weeks.

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#134

Post by lmilcin »

tomerico wrote: post #10

Italy has an older population, hence more susceptible to deaths and spreading of the virus: - Average age of death due to Coronavirus in Italy is 82 [1] - In Italy, 3.65% of the population is 80 or older [2]. - In Korea, 1.75% of the population is 80 or older [3] [1] https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/covid-19... [2] https://www.populationpyramid.net/italy/2019/ [3] https://www.populationpyramid.net/…

I can understand how it is more susceptible to death but I don't see the connection with spreading. Old people tend to move about much less and none of the references support that older people are in any way more responsible for spreading the virus.

I think much better explanation would be that Italy has a lot of tourism, it is basically a tourism hub for northern and eastern Europe. Tourism == a lot of people moving about, very frequently, then leaving the country. Almost all initial cases here in Poland seem to be connected with somebody coming back from vacation in Italy.

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#135

Post by yurlungur »

enitihas wrote: post #5

Just curious, does anybody know how did Japan manage to do so well, inspite of a very old population. Also what does HN think is the better place to be right now? A mega city or a small village?

Yeah I'm curious myself. It seems like no specific policy can clearly explain the results. IIRC Japan is one of the later countries to restrict travel from China back when cases were high there and in general did limited testing on their population. Maybe the public hygiene practice and culture of wearing masks really helped, or maybe the infection is still developing there.

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#136

Post by vasco »

orblivion wrote: post #91
gHosts wrote: post #24

Reminder for those in despair... It is merely enough to make the r0 after containment measures less than 1. Then the problem will eventually go away. As someone said, social distancing measures to work must be done when it seems to be overreacting. And if they work, it will seem as if we overreacted.

Does anybody have opinions on outdoor activities in small groups? Supposing we've come to the point where we're otherwise staying at home where possible. It could get psychologically daunting, especially for those of us who live alone. (Video conferencing could help as well). I thought some outdoor games with people in real life, maybe 10-15 people, staying a meter away from each other, etc. Is that small risk, minis…

Significant risk. Stay home and wash your hands regularly.

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#137

Post by cvwright »

kjakm wrote: post #124
christoph wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a UK citizen I am honestly terrified by my governments response and actions. In years to come I fear it’s going to be the textbook example of exactly how not to manage these types of situations.

I thought that - but then I watched today's press conference with the chief scientific adviser and chief medical adviser. They made some very good cases for not locking stuff down just yet. Primarily you need to consider the behaviour of people. This is going to go on for a while no matter what we do and if we lockdown people now, by the time we hit the peak they will be ready to give up and go outside again. We need…

Until today, European airlines were flying empty “ghost” planes because they had no passengers, but they wanted to keep their landing slots.

Yesterday I talked to a colleague who relayed the story of a transatlantic flight this week, where only 6 seats were filled, out of 36 in the section.

I don’t think there’s much remaining travel left to be banned. The resulting economic impact therefore can’t be that big.

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#138

Post by majormajor »

pascalxus wrote: post #80
rb808 wrote: post #33

> South Korea has since reported 67 deaths out of nearly 8,000 confirmed cases, after testing more than 222,000 people. In contrast, Italy has had 1,016 deaths and identified more than 15,000 cases after carrying out more than 73,000 tests on an unspecified number of people. Surely the testing is a huge factor. Test more people you'll find more people infected, so the fatality rate will get smaller. If you're like th…

i don't understand how knowing that you have the virus makes it less likely that you will die from it. There's no cure right? and at this point, anyone with a flu or cold will assume they have it and act accordingly, right?

It makes you less likely to give it to other people. Which makes people less likely to go to the hospital. Which makes the hospital less likely to run out of beds and equipment. Which makes the people with serious cases less likely to die. Which might even be... you in a few more days if you have a case that develops complications!

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#139

Post by skmurphy »

T-A wrote: post #98
skmurphy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you factor in collapse of medical services -- Italy ran out of ventilators / ICU beds--the gap becomes clearer. You have to look at over 60 as more likely to be hospitalized, putting strain on medical system.

As far as I can tell from the media, Italy has not run out of intensive care units yet. See e.g. this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/italy-coronaviru...

Here are two reports that would indicate that the standard of care has been substantially reduced

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/who-gets-h... "Doctors and nurses are unable to tend to everybody. They lack machines to ventilate all those gasping for air."

----

https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/12/coronavirus-italy-doctor... "Another nurse working in Lombardy, the Italian region the worst hit by COVID-19, told Euronews the situation was "dire" and far worse than it is being portrayed in the media.

Speaking to Euronews on the condition of anonymity, she said: "We have hundreds of cases in our hospital. Half of our operating block has been dedicated to COVID-19 patients. The situation is dire. Anesthetists – despite them playing it down a little bit on the media – have to choose who they attach to the machine for ventilation, and who they won’t attach to the machines"

---

A first person report from Seattle ICU doctor https://www.facebook.com/marie.e.will/posts/1016307125424515... "Remdesivir might work, some hosps have seen improvement with it quite rapidly, marked improvement in 1-3 days. ARDS trajectory is impressive with it, pts improve much more rapidly than expected in usual ARDS. Recommended course is 10d, but due to scarcity all hosps have stopped it when pt clinically out of the woods - none have continued >5d.

I decode this as they have half the amount of Remdesivir they need, only treating for 5 days when recommended course is 10.

The other thing that appears to be going on, and it's also hinted at in report from Seattle, is that old patients are being moved to hospice or "comfort care" who would not have been three months ago because of lack of supplies/personnel/equipment.

Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

#140

Post by jjtheblunt »

skmurphy wrote: post #39
enitihas wrote: post #5

Just curious, does anybody know how did Japan manage to do so well, inspite of a very old population. Also what does HN think is the better place to be right now? A mega city or a small village?

My hypothesis is that Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore had to contend with earlier SARS outbreak and responded more quickly and comprehensively with contact tracing, social distancing.

and perhaps residual previous-exposure widely-disseminated immunity to the class of viruses?
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