Interesting detail in the article: in Korea testing is free if referred by a doctor, or it is up to 140$ if you just want to be tested.
Having a fever, and enough money, I’d happily pay $140 for the peace of mind that comes with that test.
Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics
151–160 of 410 posts
Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics
#152US is pretty much headed for the italian model thanks to almost non-existent leadership and people unwilling to isolate themselves, feel the right to go everywhere public while sick and cough/sneeze on everyone
A month from now there are going to be so many people sick, hospitals overwhelmed and they won't be able to hide the death count anymore.
Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics
#153S.Korea is also effectively an island - water 3 sides + sealed N.Korea border. I don't think it's useful comparing large interconnected EU countries response capabilities against Asian Tigers islands (Korea, Singapore, Taiwan) with deep collectivist cultural roots and large demographics that still remember living under centralized authoritarian rule. In the case of Singapore and China, still are. Italy has too much t…
> [...] deep collectivist cultural roots and large demographics that still remember living under centralized authoritarian rule. In the case of Singapore and China, still are. From Singapore's Wikipedia page: > Freedom House ranks Singapore as "partly free" in its Freedom in the World report,[137] and The Economist Intelligence Unit ranks Singapore as a "flawed democracy", the second best rank of four, in its "Democr…
And unlike HK, at least Singapore might stay that way.
Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics
#154Reminder 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…
At my jiu jitsu club, we're moving into no-contact grappling. This will keep us safe from the virus yet give those in quarantine some much-needed mental relief. See e.g. https://streamable.com/loz3v . Don't do that outdoors though, unless you can find ways to avoid the injuries from no-contact grappling on hard surfaces.
Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Japan has a lot of intensive care units. I guess it comes with having a generally older population.
but not compared to other developed countries (except England): [1] [2] Germany 3.7 24.6 France 3.3 9.3 England 2.7 3.3 USA 2.4 20 Canada 2.4 13.5 Japan 2.2 4 to 5 1. Ratio of physicians to patients (per 1,000 population) 2. Number of ICU beds (per 100,000 population)
Where did you get these numbers? I’m fairly certain I’ve seen Japan being ridiculously high in these numbers before.
Edit: Never mind, that was total number of hospital beds. The number of ICU units is really small.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00134-015-4165-...
Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics
#156Is there any map of the spread within Italy (or any other country) region wise, so that one could see how effected different regions are, and how region wise quarantined have worked.
From a colleague of mine: http://www.risklayer.com/blog/Tracking%20Coronavirus%20at%20... .
Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics
#157Reminder 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.
I think all the current measures are for the purpose of curve flattening. The volume under the curve (infected people) will be the same but it will be spread over a longer time period and hopefully avoid a spike of cases that will crush health care systems.
Unfortunately that math doesn't work. The US has roughly 100k ICU beds. Critical patients are spending about two weeks on a ventilator. Doing the math that means we can treat a maximum of 2 million patients this year.
Assuming half the country gets infected and the 20-30% hospitalization rate remains that's 35 million or so patients.
So best case we can treat about 5% of the cases. And that's if we let no other patients into the ICU. Which isnt practical because they run at ~80% capacity or more anyways. So really that number drops down to more like 1%.
The only option is to contain it or watch millions die.
Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics
#158Italy got caught by surprise - they only found out that they had cases when a 38 year old (!) walked into an ER with advanced symptoms. Given that this age bracket is not commonly affected by these harsher symptoms it is clear that they had long ongoing community transmission which has now culminated in the current catastrophe. Germany is doing a bit better in this respect, it took them 1000 cases to 'get' the first…
Germany is counting deaths differently. If you have heart issues and you die due to a heart attack you're not counted as a COVID death. In Italy you are as long as you test positive.
> If you have heart issues and you die due to a heart attack you're not counted as a COVID death
That doesn't seem to be the case - a man from Baden-Württemberg, who died earlier this month, was only tested positive AFTER he was already dead for a few days and counted towards the statistic.
This means your general statement cannot be true.
Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics
#159Italy got caught by surprise - they only found out that they had cases when a 38 year old (!) walked into an ER with advanced symptoms. Given that this age bracket is not commonly affected by these harsher symptoms it is clear that they had long ongoing community transmission which has now culminated in the current catastrophe. Germany is doing a bit better in this respect, it took them 1000 cases to 'get' the first…
Germany is counting deaths differently. If you have heart issues and you die due to a heart attack you're not counted as a COVID death. In Italy you are as long as you test positive.
No it isn't.
Re: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Singapore is probably doing as best as any country could hope to. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/12/8145224... Also, as an American, I'm embarrassed by my country's response and by how my president addresses the nation. PM Lee shows how you talk to your country: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mYs1Uyx3c8 His original address five weeks prior: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dExr76Wckr8
I would be proud to vote for someone like this.
Let’s not get carried away in our praise of Singapore’s leaders. Singapore is an authoritarian state and Lee is a part of the ruling family.