I was not very surprised that Italy turned out to be the (first?) major hit in Europe. Considering the strong business connections, it had to be either us or Germany. We are, as much of the world, importers from China, but many enterprises here are also, somewhat, strong exporters to China (I can see it from my dayjob as industrial automation SI), and if you factor in the small average size of Italian companies requi…
Who is "us" ? Hackernews are being read from around the world. I'm for example from South Africa.
Italy also has the second-oldest population in the world, after Japan. And a below average number of hospital beds available per capita.
I'm not sure what country you're from. If you're from the States (where I see a lot of denialism): Italy has 3.18 beds per 1,000 people. The United States has 2.77 beds per 1,000 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hosp...
Yes. Both Italy and the US are below average. South Korea and Japan, currently taking extremely drastic measures like mass-closing schools, have around 5x as many beds as either.
I'm in the US, but if you think that makes me think the US is prepared, you have it backwards. I'd guess that if we're not in worse shape than Italy in two weeks, we'll be very lucky.
I am a Chinese living in Bay Area. What's described by the Italian doctor was exactly like the situation in Wuhan right after the lockdown for the first 2-3 weeks. Unfortunately, I think it will hit Italy harder this time, China locked down Wuhan but every other provinces send in supplies and doctors to help, just building new hospitals is not enough, and I don't see France/Germany doing the same to Italy. The US res…
It's not just the US though, you have other countries in Europe handling this abysmally like The Netherlands. Indonesia is still in the "pray to make it go away" stage despite multiple cases in Singapore being traced back to Indonesian travel (including one rich Indonesian who couldn't find anyone to treat them in Indonesia so deliberately flew to Singapore on a private plane to get healthcare).
To be clear, I don't believe the following (Hanlon's razor, etc), but it would make a good dystopian/thriller:
As some point one might consider if governments see COVID-19 as an opportunity to "cull the herd". Japan and Italy have the two largest aging populations of any countries. The US has a large number of citizens with COVID-19 comorbidities.
I'm not sure if the long term savings on entitlements and health care costs would outweigh the short term economic damage, though.
So this is awaiting all countries, in all likelihood? I mean what's the difference between Italy and Switzerland? Or Germany? Or the United States?
The united states is going to fare a lot worse. Their president is actively contradicting his own experts and essentially encouraging people to go on spreading the disease. It's going to be a clusterfuck.
We use to have that mentality in South Africa a few years ago where our medical minister "Doctor Beetroot" told patients HIV is not that bad and they should just shower and eat garlic and beetroot !
I don't remember much opposition to that order and I can't find any now.
You must not have been paying much attention then. > The Trump administration’s quarantine and travel ban in response to the Wuhan coronavirus could undercut international efforts to fight the outbreak by antagonizing Chinese leaders, as well as stigmatizing people of Asian descent, according to a growing chorus of public health experts and lawmakers.[0] > The Trump administration’s decision to severely restrict trav…
I am a Chinese living in Bay Area. What's described by the Italian doctor was exactly like the situation in Wuhan right after the lockdown for the first 2-3 weeks. Unfortunately, I think it will hit Italy harder this time, China locked down Wuhan but every other provinces send in supplies and doctors to help, just building new hospitals is not enough, and I don't see France/Germany doing the same to Italy. The US res…
I am extremely disappointed in the American government on this. We have had a significant warning and we've seen the virus in multiple countries and the response has been so lackluster. Why should we wait 20 days for things to get terrible before going to quarantines and lock down? Surely China and Italy have shown us our future. I partly think the problem is political. If you quarantine and the virus is controlled,…
I'm feeling the same. I just started becoming concerned on Friday, and trying to keep up on accurate news. Do you, or anyone else in the US know how to help raise public awareness for prevention, preparedness for the worse, or lessening the impact on healthcare systems and communities? I feel like this needs its own thread, or platform for collaboration. I'm worried that without wider availability of testing, we're already fucked and that quarantine = police state.
Politicians have no understanding of exponential growth. They look at low numbers and think "we have a lot of time" then are surprised later when they in fact don't.
> Politicians have no understanding of exponential growth To be fair, that is true of 95% of humanity. These politicians are representative of their voters, as democracy should be.
> These politicians are representative of their voters, as democracy should be.
Isn't it that they make decisions on behalf of the voters and should take the best professional advice on their behalf?
My wife said they didn't lose a single resident to diagnosed flu last year. 26 people have died in a matter of weeks at that nursing home from Coronavirus. If this thing gets into these other facilities, it's going to wipe them out.
Do people typically die of diagnosed flu? It's my understanding that most flu deaths are undiagnosed, which is why the CDC's ranges for flu deaths are always so broad; they're estimating how many pneumonia deaths they think were caused by the flu season.
That's why I said "diagnosed" because people die of pneumonia from time to time, and this can sometimes be a result of having the flu, but the pneumonia is apparent, but not necessarily that they previously had the flu.
Do you have any numbers or is it just anecdotal? Because when worked in a nursing home back the day, the seasonal flus was already bad enough, so...
I'm not OP, but it's a quick search. "Nineteen of those who died in King County were residents of Life Care Center, a nursing home in Kirkland, according to Public Health - Seattle & King County. Researchers say the virus may have been circulating undetected for weeks."[0] [0] - https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/coronavirus-number-confirme...
Yeah, they are saying now that there's a 5 day incubation period for COVID19.
Without widespread testing, we are going to have no idea how bad this is and how seriously fast we need to lock down facilities, particularly nursing homes, and this particular nursing home has shown that in a lot of places, the disease is going to strike and kill FAST.
The vast majority of people don't have an intuitive understanding of exponential growth. People not trained well in math and science don't even have/know the tools to help them understand it analytically. We need (much) better math education for people studying all majors .
One of our older neighbors are inviting everyone on the nextdoor app to go to their house for movie night to prove that this is just a flu. The entire thread is people making fun of covid19 and how they are angry their retirement accounts are getting hit. I wish I was making this up.
Geez, what part of the country if you don't mind me asking? Arrogance, ignorance, and disinformation is literally going to kill us. Thanks for sharing that.