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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

#61

Post by gummydog »

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.

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.

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

#62

Post by Retric »

T-A wrote: post #26
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/…

3.65% / 1.75% ~ 2.09, so the difference in age profile might explain a factor 2 in the mortality ratio of Italy vs South Korea. The actual ratio is currently 7.9: 827 out of 12462 cases in Italy (6.6%), 66 out of 7869 cases in South Korea (0.84%).

A large number of South Korea infections are even younger due to how it spread.

Italy: Above 80: 1,532 (18.4)% vs age 20-29: 296 (0.0)%

South Korea: Above 80: 243 (3.1)% age 20-29: 2,261 (28.7)%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_S...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_I...

Of note, neither country has had anyone under 30 die. Deaths in the 80+ age range are 8.23% in South Korea and 13.2% in Italy.

PS: South Korea saw 2 deaths under age 50 where Italy has seen 1. So this age is by far the largest factor.

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

#63

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

T-A wrote: post #26
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/…

3.65% / 1.75% ~ 2.09, so the difference in age profile might explain a factor 2 in the mortality ratio of Italy vs South Korea. The actual ratio is currently 7.9: 827 out of 12462 cases in Italy (6.6%), 66 out of 7869 cases in South Korea (0.84%).

Except if the increased rate of death is from the medical system being over capacity.... this still wouldn't be a good test of quality of their responses, but more just revealing the capacity of their medical system.

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

#65

Post by wott »

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?

Single point of data:

All the years I lived in cities and did what an average urban dweller does: packed in an office, packed in public transportation or even packed on the pavement, packed in shops, packed in bars, packed in elevators, packed on the terraces or in a concert hall; I was getting a flu (or something very similar putting me in bed for 3 days) at least twice a year, sometimes thrice.

In the last 7 years, I have been living in the country and not taking part in almost any social activity. I got my first major flu on January this year. First time in seven years for something that previously happened to me every year. Brought by family members who had gone to some gathering... in the city (and who had been vaccinated against flu as obedient citizens, but that vaccine is notoriously crappy). We all got sick. In all those years, I only got 2 or 3 minor episodes, and all of them immediately followed one my very rare and short stays in the city, or a close family member who brought me that 'gift' from the same place.

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

#66

Post by ceejayoz »

Tyrek wrote: post #37
dsjoerg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your last line is the super important point, occurred to me today as well. If we beat this thing with social distancing, idiots will say "See! There was no reason to panic!"

and what if it died down due factors other than social distancing? You're positing an irrefutable claim which is sloppy logic.

Given the different dates (and levels of aggressiveness) countries are enforcing social distancing, it should be quite refutable.

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

#67

Post by js2 »

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…

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

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

#69

Post by skmurphy »

zaroth wrote: post #41
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.

This doesn’t account for it because South Korea didn’t even have the number of serious cases that Italy has. The real answer is simply that the number of tests is not equal to the number of cases. The number of positive tests is a factor of the number of tests done, and how selective the testing was allowed to be. It is only loosely related to the number of infected people (technically it is the lower bound).

My comment was directed at age structure of population accounting for difference in mortality, complicated by effective collapse of medical care in certain regions of Italy that meant severe cases that could have been managed because critical and then fatal without ventilation support.

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

#70

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

gnulinux wrote: post #27
enitihas wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Went to two massive church gatherings while advised to isolate, gatherings with 1000 people.

I'm curious if something like this can be considered criminal. What if the mortality rate was higher? If the mortality rate was 100%, ethically would this be murder?

It can be. There's a criminal investigation of the cult's leadership ongoing.
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