311–320 of 410 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A large number of South Korea infections are even younger due to how it spread. Another possibility is that Italy doesn't have a handle on who is or isn't infected so what they report are the obvious infections, who tend to be older.
>Another possibility is that Italy doesn't have a handle on who is or isn't infected so what they report are the obvious infections, who tend to be older. This is very likely the case, as can be seen in the positive test outcome rates. 16.7% in Italy vs. 3.6% in South Korea Italy has run around 60k tests. South Korea are testing around 15k people/day and have tested 234k people in total. They've even setup drive-thro…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
South Korea used to be at about the same development index as Italy maybe...20 years ago? Today it's tied with Israel (as of 2018) and above Spain, France, and Italy. The PPP is also about 10% higher than Italy and has about half the unemployment rate. Most importantly it has one of the most advanced healthcare systems in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_o...
South Korea also has 4x as many hospital beds per 1000 people as Italy does. They still suffered a shortage of hospital beds in the hard-hit area around Daegu, so much so that some people died while waiting. Italy and other countries with fewer hospital beds will have to resort to what China did: build makeshift hospitals, fast. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hosp...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
China reported Covid19 to WHO on 31 Dec 2019, do you say that travel curbs were put in Taiwan in early December?
Taiwan started acting on 31st Dec. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689 Taiwan has had a spectacular response to the virus - that is the gold standard that Italy (or Korea) should be compared against.
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/…
No, the far more likely explanation is that the total number of cases reported for Italy don't reflect reality. Because they are overwhelmed Italian hospitals basically send people home if they have a fever or other symptoms with no test administered, instructed to come back in case the symptoms worsen, only people having trouble breathing being admitted in the ICU. Italy could easily have in reality 10 times the num…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Italy is the second oldest country in the world after Japan, how do they have 800 deaths compared to 16 in Japan? Something about those numbers seems off. Is it because Japan's elderly population tend to live in rural areas compared to Italy's or something else societally related?
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!)
A lot of people seem to think that Japan must somehow have a higher infection rate but I haven't seen any evidence that this is true.
For all the docileness of the mainstream media and the lame-duck politics it is a free and democratic society. The government couldn't hide a mass outbreak of corona virus anymore than it has been able to hide any other scandal. In fact almost certainly less given the levels of public interest.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare publishes updated statistics daily (https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/0000164708_... -- in Japanese). looking at the current stats published there's not really any obvious problems. They're seeing about an 8% positive rate on corona virus tests and 1.8% of those with confirmed infections have died. This is well below the rates seen in Iran, Italy, America and China suggesting they've been relatively thorough in catching infections, although less so than South Korea.
In truth the Japanese healthcare system is probably the best in the world at providing population level care. Since long before Corona virus standards of hygiene have been very high. Masks and hand sanitizer bottles have been a common site for a long time, hand washing and gargling is heavily encouraged, and direct contact (hand shakes, hugs, back pats .etc.) is very restrained.
Whats more for all the criticism it copped the Japanese government has been pretty decisive in responding to corona virus. It's shut down schools. It's shut down public spaces (museums, libraries .etc.). It's discouraged crowds. It's encourage working from home. It's restricted travel from hot spots. It's isolated those with infections. Also most age homes seem to have gone into lock down weeks ago.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A large number of South Korea infections are even younger due to how it spread. Another possibility is that Italy doesn't have a handle on who is or isn't infected so what they report are the obvious infections, who tend to be older.
It is possible you are right. IIRC, 17% of those tested were positive in Italy. That's a very high percentage. Very likely the actual infected number is much higher.
Italy 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…
I noticed something else that might be an interesting correlation: available "acute" hospital beds. I don't have time to do the full correlation, but here's the data: https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=30183 Select "Curative (acute) care beds" Scroll down to the Per 1000 population. Italy: 2.62 Korea (assuming South): 7.14 The list of countries in that table is a good bit shorter than the countries fighting Co…
That is a big factor. And: available nursing staff. Beds aren't enough. You need the right people to operate a large number of patients at the same time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A large number of South Korea infections are even younger due to how it spread. Another possibility is that Italy doesn't have a handle on who is or isn't infected so what they report are the obvious infections, who tend to be older.
>Another possibility is that Italy doesn't have a handle on who is or isn't infected so what they report are the obvious infections, who tend to be older. This is very likely the case, as can be seen in the positive test outcome rates. 16.7% in Italy vs. 3.6% in South Korea Italy has run around 60k tests. South Korea are testing around 15k people/day and have tested 234k people in total. They've even setup drive-thro…