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Comment by taeric | Hacker News Reader

The part of Italy hit also has air quality, per aqi searches, that is comparable to the region in China that was hit hard.

Have people looked that it is not age, but baseline damage to your lungs that is the main factor in serious cases? Older people will have more exposure to local air pollution, just from having lived longer. That existing damage can be what contributes to complications, right?

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Source? Right now air in Wuhan [0] seems to be significantly worse than Milan [1]. Both cities are under some level of quarantine, but it has been stricter and going on for much longer in Wuhan. Chinese sources say that the air in Wuhan is much better than it was before the quarantine. We can assume that the difference between the two cities would be even larger during normal activity.

Edit: Milan is much closer to Seoul [2] than to Wuhan.

[0]: https://www.airvisual.com/china/hubei/wuhan

[1]: https://www.airvisual.com/italy/lombardy/milano

[2]: https://www.airvisual.com/south-korea/seoul

I used those sites and looked at daily historical. I grant that China was strictly worse. But Milan is strictly worse than everywhere else getting hit.

Edit: and the air being better after the quarantine would support my hypothesis. It wasn't that that helped, but the better air. (Which is still very bad)

The daily historical on that website goes back to February 12th. Wuhan has been in lockdown since January 23.

I'm now on my phone, but the site I used went back longer. I'll compare when I can.

And again, China was worse. Italy is just worse than all places I checked that had a lot of cases, but not as many severe cases.

For reference, this is the site I found that went back farther. Milan is not constant days of 150, as Hubei is. That said, it is littered with many high value days. Contrasted with Seattle, which has been steady below 60 for the time period.

Take this over to Australia [below], and you can see that even they had terrible air as recently as mid January.

Contrast to Norway [also below], which has hovered on fine air quality for the entire time. Same for Japan, all told.

Basically, the worse your air quality, the more severe cases you are seeing. To a marked degree.

Edit: Just eyeballing, Milan is worse than Seoul. Agreed not as bad as Hubei. But between.

Seattle: https://air-quality.com/place/united-states/seattle/9e80e347

Hubei: https://air-quality.com/place/china/hubei/7991f3c2

Milan: https://air-quality.com/place/italy/metropolitan-city-of-mil...

Australia: https://air-quality.com/place/australia/victoria/def9c265

Norway: https://air-quality.com/place/norway/troms/a70875e7

Japan: https://air-quality.com/place/japan/tokyo/c8969bc2

I wonder if and how long-term smokers are skewing the stats.

That hinges a lot on if I'm right. Which is still unlikely, as much as I'm find of my own opinions. :)

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