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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

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be able to explain what did they do?

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

I think there's some hints she might have caught it from the church gatherings rather than the other way around.

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

#82
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's not really a church. They're a secretive society of church corrupters spreading false teachings.

I mean, let's not throw stones when we live in glass houses. Pretty much every religion teaches that the others are false teachings.

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

#83

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…

Shoot...

United States: 2.44

Interestingly, that's 20% lower than in 2000 (3.04)

At least Japan is in an OK spot, at 7.79

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

#84
post #9

S. Korea is very interconnected as a society. Technology does have a role but people are generally receptive of personal information being collected and used. For example, in order to hand out the proper number of masks, they have APIs which allows a database to inventory pharmacy mask handouts. In the face of a crisis, are Koreans forfeiting their privacy or are they trying to curb a bad situation? Americans would d…

Yes. They're generally quite compliant and community-oriented as well.

If the health minister says the best way to slow this is to stay inside, then generally they'll stay inside.

Meanwhile, I have friends who are giving the middle finger to caution and are heading off on their flights for spring break - all for the privilege of being carriers.

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

#85

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…

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?

That, and Japan's first recorded infection was almost two months ago.

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

#86

There's sooooo many lies being propagated by different governments on the true state of things. This afternoon I watched a live broadcast of parliament in which the minister of health claimed Belgium was doing far more extensive testing than any other country on earth. This at a time when standing instructions to medical personnel are to only test people that are already admitted to hospital because of severe pulmona…

I've seen English politicians constantly boast on TV that they've caught it very early and they've done better than anyone in the world...

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

#87
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 doesn't change the actual odds, it changes the perceived / measured odds.

Imagine 100 people contract the virus, 10 develop serious symptoms, and one dies.

In country A, with widespread testing, 40 of the 100 are identified. The visible statistics are 40 cases, one death, death rate of 2.5%.

In country B, with poor testing, only the 10 with serious symptoms are identified. The visible statistics are 10 cases, one death, death rate of 10%.

Again, this is about the reported statistics, not the underlying truth of the disease.

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

#88
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?

No it doesn't. But what you ultimately want to know is the real number of infections. Testing is the best way to estimate that number. If you test just a few people you might e.g. miss a large portion that is either asymptomatic or is categorized as having a flu or cold. In this latter case, of course, the calculated lethality is higher than in the former - i.e. if you test lots and lots of people.

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

#89
post #75

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…

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.

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

#90

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.
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