I've been trying to find a source to clarify and have come up empty: what happened in Italy that they were hit so disproportionately hard relative to other countries?
Most other European countries are now at 20-40 cases per million inhabitants, where Italy was 5-10 days ago[1]. They will be in our situation or worse in a week, since Italy had already started putting (mild) containment measures in place in the last week of February.
[1] https://twitter.com/fagiolinux/status/1237059898304847874/ph...
We created systems for like-minded individuals who were previously geographically separated to find each other and cross-communicate easily, asynchronously, peer-to-peer, and globally. What you're seeing that looks like organized planning by a central office is more the effect of these people all reading (and posting on) the same news sources and message boards regardless of country of origin.
On 16 February, as the 38-year-old man's condition worsened, he went to Codogno Hospital, reporting respiratory problems.[20] Initially, there was no suspicion of COVID-19, so no additional precautionary measures were taken, and the virus was able to infect other patients and health workers.[21] Later, the patient, his pregnant wife, and a friend tested positive.[20] Three more cases were confirmed on the same day, after the patients reported symptoms of pneumonia.[22] Thereafter, extensive screenings and checks were performed on everyone that had possibly been in contact or near the infected subjects.[23]
The 38-year-old man was asymptomatic for weeks, reportedly led an active social life, and potentially interacted with dozens of people before spreading the virus at Codogno Hospital.[20][21] Afterwards, he was transferred to Policlinico San Matteo in Pavia,[24] and his wife to Sacco Hospital in Milan.[25][26] " [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_outbreak_in_I...
Total speculation on my part, but you can imagine a dozen similar scenarios that are just bad luck. Heck, in Germany, there was a cross-training event at an auto manufacturer, with Chinese workers visiting plant in Germany. Imagine: "Ok, let's all take turns at the controls of this metal press..." Boom.
The same thing has no doubt happened in the USA, we just don't know about it yet. I just looked at an annual event that I go to most Aprils, and.... not cancelled yet. I sure am not going this year -- I can't believe the organizers are not cancelling out -- knowing them, I suspect greed.
Edit: Typo's and grammo's.
- lot of heavy smokers
- the typical european old people attitude (and i'm saying that as a european too): "you don't take me anywhere". My grandparents passed away long ago but they never went to doctor only in the very last minute all the time. It's a kind of mentality and you can see that in the Italy cases. When they take people to the hospital and they die the next day it means they had a heavy fever for a week or more already. They have been sick for a long time but no, we don't go to the hospital. That's why what South Korea does is important, 20k tests daily, and they have done 200k already.
There is no real evidence that smokers or older people more easily get the virus, and of course if they stayed put at home they did not contribute to the spreading (they had no or however less contacts).
I've never been to the US but I don't think kiss on the cheek is that common there.
Thanks for fixing.
> Italian health officials are making another change in their testing protocols that may slow the growth of new case numbers. The country expects to limit coronavirus testing to at-risk people showing symptoms of COVID-19, said Giuseppe Ippolito, scientific director at Italy’s National Institute for Infectious Diseases.
> Previously, Italy was testing anyone who visited certain towns in northern Italy or came into contact with someone infected with the virus but not necessarily showing symptoms.
> Ippolito said the shift corresponds with updated recommendations from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control,.
[0] https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/italy-virus-count-me...
..."According to data published by the Italian Ministry of Labor and Social Policies, 309,110 Chinese people were officially living in the country in 2018, comprising 155,305 men and 153,805 women with an average age of 31 years. Lombardy and Tuscany emerged as the two regions that received the largest number. Specifically, several businesses producing or selling clothes, supermarkets, and technological-device stores have been concentrated in the city of Milan, boosting a vibrant multicultural environment in Lombardy."...
https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/on-being-a-chinese-in-italy-du...
As for number of deaths in Italy - they are already in warlike conditions where patients are going through selection and some are simply left to die.
> Since there is, unfortunately, a disproportion between hospital resources, resuscitation beds and critically ill patients, not everyone can be intubated,” Salaroli said. “We decide based on age and state of health,” he added. [1]
[1 https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/belgium-all-news/heal...]
14.3% Case Fatality Rate, 90+ years old
8.2% CFR, 80-89
4% CFR, 70-79
1.4% CFR, 60-69
0.1% CFR, 50-59
0% under 50
Source: https://www.iss.it/primo-piano/-/asset_publisher/o4oGR9qmvUz...
(Official Italian health service, 7 March 2020)
This virus evolves somewhat slowly- up to 2 weeks incubation period plus another 3-6 weeks of illness. But because it spreads during incubation, and has a high R0 value, once it starts spreading it does extremely rapidly in dense areas, after the 1-3 week lull. It is allegedly aerosolized and one paper reported surface contamination for >1 week.
The us is in week ≈2 now. Week ≈3 is where the whole country lights up with outbreak and the government is pressed into extreme measures. This is based primarily on South Korea's timeline.
On the bright side, the sprawl of the US may make this easier to deal with, but you can probably expect some domestic travel restrictions soon. I don't know if states have authority to close borders but I won't be surprised to hear about it.
That should be 'mean'
If it spreads before the coughing starts, i.e. during normal breathing, doesn’t it get out of your body too easily?
See:
- https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.14.20022939v...
- https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.20.20025601v...
> Compared with SARS, COVID-19 was transmitted in a more diverse way, from person to person, asymptomatic infected people and possible fecal-oral transmission, created the conditions for a large-scale spread.
- https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.17.20023721v...
If states in the US do try to lock down their borders, I might drive across a few just to reinforce the fact that such measures are unconstitutional and anti-American. This is all starting to feel like mass hysteria, considering how much reports vary from country to country and the whiplash speed at which the overton window is moving. How long until Congress passes the Pandemic-triot act to suspend the 1st amendment in the same way that the Patriot act suspended the 4th and 5th?
This happens every 5 years or so; SARS, swine flu, and H1N1 were all more severe, and we didn't destroy our societies over them. We just have more access to information and mediums of emotional contagion nowadays. I understand that most people disagree with me on this, but that's what happens with mass hysteria and emotional contagion. Know that not everyone buys into it, and if you are keeping calm you are not alone :)
Personally, I'm thinking of visiting Venice in a few weeks once the planes and trains are operating again. This seems like a great opportunity to avoid the crowds and get a good deal on seeing the city before it is submerged for good.
China shut down it's entire industry for two months. Knowing full well the risk of losing global business permanently. Perhaps it is time for drastic measures.
I think we need to acknowledge that the worst-cast predictions are laughably inaccurate, and a little bit of fear of the unknown is not worth losing our civil rights over.
Now do you honestly think China would shut down it's entire economy for 2 months over the flu? Have you actually read any published literature on the virus, or are you just watching people around you prepare and laughing at them? 8% of the Iranian parliament was infected last week - two were dead by Friday.
Because this is all unfolding slowly, we still don't even know if any of the following speculation is true:
1. Multiple Chinese sources report reinfection after recover
2. Multiple sources report positive tests after recovery
3. Hot weather may not stop the virus (see Singapore)
This is not SARS. This is not just another flu outbreak. Global markets are crashing because they see what's happened in 6+ countries now. It's time to get your head out of the sand.
Do you know that fucking Mecca is deserted right now? I don't think that's ever happened before.
The markets crashing is overdue IMO; things have been overheated for a long time now and a correction has been expected for awhile. It had may as well come as a result of herd behavior rather than market fundamentals, and I say let it ride. Like the old adage goes: be greedy when people are fearful, and fearful when people are greedy.
Also, the Hajj isn't until July this year; it's not surprising that Mecca is not crowded, and closing it for most business at this point in time is not beyond the pale in a global sense.
Coronavirus has begun exponential growth in the rest of the world. The rest of the world already has more cases than China did when exponential growth inflected.
As of today, it's not showing any signs of inflection. On February 26th, Trump said we had 15 cases in the US, and would be close to zero within a few days. 11 days later, we have 607 cases, 22 deaths, and 8 recoveries. That's a growth rate of 40% per day, and holding steady.
The scary number isn't 607. And it isn't even 22. Nor is it 22/607 or 22/(8+22). (which, tbh, is pretty scary)
The scary number is 40%.
Sure, it's "just" old people with a high probability of dying. But I have several elderly relatives. I'm not enthusiastic about losing any of them.
See how China scientifically tracked spreading: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22528245
> China shut down it's entire industry for two months
and kept everybody at home (and if you violate those restrictions, go to jail), and had masks for everybody... It's safer to be in China than EU now.
Just wait a week or so.
"Just wait a week" is the refrain of everyone who is panicking right now, as it has been for the past few weeks.
Because that's how the exponential function works. Italy started earlier so its numbers are still growing by thousands every day.
But the numbers for France and Germany are almost exactly the same as the numbers that Italy had 10 days earlier, and Switzerland trails Italy by only 5 days once you correct for the smaller population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%932...
So I ask again, if this is such a super-pandemic, why are Germany and France fine despite having looser quarantine measures and earlier outbreaks than Italy? And why do you expect them to get dramatically worse over the next week?
Is this what you want in your community?
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/03/8099657...
If that's your definition of "fine", then when you wrote this:
> why are Germany and France fine despite having looser quarantine measures ...
were you actually saying:
"why are Germany and France having looser quarantine measures despite having looser quarantine measures?"
/shakes head
"Why are Germany and France not worse off than Italy despite having looser quarantine measures and an earlier start to their outbreaks?"
And I still haven't heard an answer which comes close to justifying Italy suspending its citizens' rights. But that's fine; it won't matter in a few months, and we're approaching an easy opportunity to make money and travel smart as the herds follow their predictable migrations.
I just wish that people were less eager to give our fundamental rights away over this; history shows that they are unlikely to come back once they are surrendered. I'm already tired of the CBP shutting down entire 80mph interstates to search every vehicle passing through; where does this end?
Anyways, arguing about it is just something to do while everything is shut down, eh? :)
Looking back at the January data, however, there were already more cases of pneumonia than usual in that same area and many of those that survived now have antibodies. And in fact, the strain that is hitting Italy was actually already present in Germany in January based on genome analysis; for whatever reason the real outbreak started a bit later in Germany than in Italy, but that's expected because the initial phases of the epidemic are random.
You're wrong. The constitution explicitly carves out allowances for quarantines.
A "nobody is allowed to leave their homes starting now" type order would obviously be practically impossible to enforce, but that's a different matter.
Where? I could be missing something, but I don't see that:
The closest I could find was the part that grants Congress the power to pass any law that it wants, but I don't think that the executive arm could unilaterally lock down interstate travel. It also says:
>The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
We are citizens of the United States, not of one state in particular. We pull together, or we fall apart.
Well, at least she didn't claim that it was her constitutional rights to barge into random hospitals carrying virus. Cultural differences, I guess.
Short answer: we don't know.
My hypothesis: Italy was the first G7 nation to join China's Belt & Road Initiative [1]. Its populist government also bet heavily on integration with Russia and China. That caused it, alongside Germany, to get hit early. Its sclerotic state then let it fester.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative#Italy