Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys
stamfordadvocate.com
stamfordadvocate.com
The real problem is in the hospitals, and for some enterprises who will really have a loss in these weeks (everything about tourism, for example). One of the biggest downsides is that people are not allowed to visit relatives or families in other cities/villages, even if a few kilometers away.
We've been promised discounts, taxes, even free subscriptions for ebooks... this lockdown is not so bad, the important is that people really understand why it has been implemented (people here in Italy tend to overreact for every news - it's always apocalyptic).
Presumably, most transmission is happening in social settings and closed environments. These measures should mitigate that. The change in social behavior would suggest it's working. We'll find out in five days or so if this is working.
No country is implementing measures nearly as extreme as China, so they won't be as successful in slowing down the epidemic.
Before someone mentions South Korea: Korean CDC explained their epidemic curve is bending because they are finishing testing the 200,000 sect members at the center of the epidemic. So fewer tests = fewer detected infections: "in Daegu and Gyeongbuk region, the transmission seems a bit slow down as testing Shincheonji members is almost finished" Source: https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=00... In other words this is NOT a sign Korea is succeeding at containing it. I have seen zero epidemiologists correctly report on this. They all fail to read what KCDC is saying.
It's outrageous to me that you are still commenting on this after so many people here debunked you (and were thoroughly proven right by now) when you were claiming apocalyptic CFR numbers.
There seems to be some missing context here. What are you talking about?
"so many people here debunked you"
I was criticized, but the criticism was invalid. My estimates turned out correct according to published studies (note that the high CFR >9% is not the same as the IFR which takes into account underascertainment and is lower around 0.5-1.6%):
A CFR of 18% was estimated by https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s...
A CFR of 33% was estimated by https://institutefordiseasemodeling.github.io/nCoV-public/an...
A CFR of 5.3 or 8.4% (depending on two scenarios) was estimated by https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/2/523
(These reports have been quoted by the WHO in situation report 30 (references 10, 11 and 12) and report 31: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati... and https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati... )
For reference I have always claimed a WIDE range for the CFR: between 9% and 56% (see https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/) So two of the three studies support me, and the third one is slightly outside my range (with one scenario where they calculated 8.4% being close to my lower bound of 9%.)
Note that these are NOT "apocalyptic estimates", as these three published estimates and my estimate only claim to be valid for one particular case: the CFR (1) for China, (2) as of January/early February, (3) not accounting for underreporting of cases. The CFR does change significantly over time, depending on countries, and depending on the ascertainment rate. The biggest factor is underascertainment, and if we correct for this in China, we calculate a much lower fatality closer to 0.5-1.6%, we call this the Infection Fatality Ratio (IFR). See the last section in my blog post "Updates & Validation": https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/#updates--...
Perhaps you thought or assumed I was calculating the IFR, not CFR.
Re South Korea: You are presenting a hypothesis as fact. For lots of reasons the hypothesis appears unlikely. Time will tell, but I'm confident you'll be proven wrong again, if I see another comment by you then I'll gladly point it out.
Why are you doing this? I think that's a question for yourself...
So ALL(!) the studies referenced in WHO situation reports are "incorrect"? The WHO couldn't/didn't find any other studies that were "correct"? Don't you think it is a little improbable that 4 entities (WHO + 3 teams behind the 3 studies) are all wrong?
You say the CFR is nowhere in the range but that's because you, like all media, look at the so-called naïve CFR (deaths/cases) which is known to severely underestimate the true CFR in the initial rapid growth phase of an epidemic, because deaths lag cases. The naïve CFR gives accurate results only when calculated across a cohort of patients who all either recovered or died, with none left hospitalized. Epidemiologists are very aware of this bias; my post at https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/ covers this topic and presents various links including 4-5 peer-reviewed papers documenting it. This bias is why none of the proper CFR estimates employ the naïve CFR calculation.
Also you need to be aware that CFR evolves over time. Initially the most severe cases are the ones that are detected first, so CFR among these initial cohorts is higher.
In fact the high CFR is confirmed by observations of these cohorts. For example 11 of the first 99 patients died[1]. That's a CFR of 11% right there. And some of these patients were still hospitalized at the time of publication, some additional ones may have died since then.
My CFR estimate and the 3 studies referenced by the WHO were all based on such early data when the detected cases were more severe. If we were to redo the estimate today with current data from China, we would find a lower CFR because today they can run many more lab tests on larger swath of population so they detect a larger proportion of mild cases.
[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
Re CFR: If you are allowed to cherry pick a narrowly defined set of cases, you can make this value look any way you want. If that's the argument you are retreating to, you simply have nothing to say, because it is grossly misleading.
Re South Korea: numbers of people tested is on a stable exponential trajectory since the very beginning, unaffected by how many church members are tested. The exponential growth factor for the number of confirmed cases has been stably decaying since the very beginning. There is simply nothing to indicate that the artifact you suggest exists, yet you take a single sentence you found online to claim South Korean growth isn't actually slowing. What the fuck dude?
The most detailed analysis of Chinese(!) CFR numbers I am aware of, including discussions of all the issues that mrb likes to quote to sow confusion: Riou et al. [0]
Cumulative number of tests performed in South Korea: See the table at [1]; ideally plot the "Total Tested" column logarithmically to see sustained exponential growth clearly.
Confirmed cases in South Korea over time [2]. Plot South Korea alone to see the continuous decay (pretty much from day 1 to right now) of the exponential growth rate clearly.
[0] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.04.20031104v...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_S...
Nothing like this happens in EU or USA :(
How does this affect people who depend on personal care from relatives and friends to do daily activities like cooking, cleaning themselves and going to the toilet?
Reasons to travel might be ex. work
I am glad it isn't--for you. Other people's mileage might vary
That seems ... like it would be really hard to do consistently adhere to and enforce, especially when it goes against social conventions and the places fill up to capacity.
(The comments from Finns on r/europe are hilarious)
(I'm half serious there, if the mask was fabric or plastic, it'd be safe, otherwise nope.)
Elevating threat perception for everything has become a daily occurance. One day it's North Korea nukes. Another day it's Russians. Another it's Iran. Another day it's climate, #metoo, immigrants, shooters etc etc.
I grew up at a time where the threats were even worse but we weren't surrounded by unqualified people falling over each other inducing anxiety in everyone as a full time job.
I think journos need to be kicked off social media or put in timeout zones after a particular message has saturated the network (can be easily be auto triggered). They are trapped by the dynamics of getting likes/views/clicks. Most of them I feel are loosing their minds and are on auto pilot. By themselves they can't exist that trap.
Social media journalism is merely a replication study.
I live in germany and currently it seems we're approaching that. The US still seems to be in denial.
Keep this in mind as the situation continues to evolve. Stock things in your house which bring you joy (good food, games, good books) and do your best to spread confidence to others around you. If you have enough space to get in some exercise, even if it's just pushups and situps, do so. If you are working from home, do your best to have a clearly defined time for your work and separate your working space from your leisure space as much as practical. If you've been thinking about writing a book or starting a new blog, now is a good time to do so.
It may not be enjoyable but it is necessary. Make the best use of this time you can.
There's also a funeral services company in Rome whose death-themed ads have become a meme ("don't worry antivaxers, we will always be ready to help if you die"), we love it. :-)
(translation: "stay at home or we will all end up in a box")
There is this sort of folklore about Italy that everyone kisses and hugs everyone else.
This is simply not accurate.
If you are introduced to someone (a stranger), it is normal courtesy to shake hands with him/her (and that's it, no hugs, no kisses), as well, unless the other person is an old friend the normal shaking of hands is the normal means of greeting.
It is extremely rare that you are touched (again let alone hugged or kissed) as a customer when you enter any shop or similar.
Are you sure you aren't extending the culture of northern Italy to all of Italy?
When I lived in Rome/Naples, it seemed like with almost everyone I met we shook hands and did the "air kisses" (not a real kiss but you still lean in close and touch cheeks).
It didn't ever happen to me with restaurant owners, sure, but then again I never really interacted with anyone other than the waiter/waitress/cashier. I could see it happening in a super small hole-in-the-wall mom and pop type restaurant though.
You could be kissing someone on the cheek coming in your restaurant if you are familiar with them, but it's not very common.
Yes, I am pretty sure, as a matter of fact I am more familiar with non-Northern Italy habits, as I am Italian (from the center and living in the center) but I have lived years in the South and also some time in Rome and near Naples.
Again I am not talking of people you know and are friend with, I am talking of:
1 - people that have just been introduced to you
2 - normal greetings between people that meet in commercial or professional environments
The case of:
>I could see it happening in a super small hole-in-the-wall mom and pop type restaurant though.
can surely happen, but it is not common/everyday as the folklore might lead to believe.
In northern Italy, most of the times. In southern Italy, kissing is much more common and it's often used even in formal environments. Shaking hands it's seen as polite but cold.
The stereotypical Italian is, for many reasons, the southern Italian, hence the kissing meme and other exaggerations that really do not apply to northern Italy.
Again, we are not talking of old friends, we are talking of strangers.
Even in the south (I lived in sicily almost 15 years) it is not at all common.
One of my biggest concerns is that places in the United States, or other countries, will adopt aggressive social distancing policies early, while the number of cases is low, and then the backlash against those policies will be that “this is hell, and the virus isn’t even affecting that many people.” That can lead to pressure to drop the policies prematurely when the virus is nowhere near contained yet.
This is a great opportunity for responsible journalism to strike a tone of optimistic “we are all in this together, it is very serious, but if we all do the right thing we should be OK.” Fear mongering on the one hand, or dismissal and backlash on the other, are both extremely harmful — But good for Clickbait and selling ads. We really need the media to resist that during this emergency.