39 ms·

Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

787 points by colinprince 7y ago

alfyboy 7y ago
For anybody living in quarantined areas of Italy. How much has your daily life been affected?
- nick2k3 7y ago
  writing from Pavia(Lombardia), 15 min of drive from the city where the first cases have developed. There is less people on the street but still too many people conducting normal life, taking public transport or having drinks etc in crowded places. These new measures are meant to force to change lifestyle and be more conscious of the risks. Daily life has changed in that you stay at home, work at home,think twice every time you need to go to the store: do I really need it? It's a possible vehicle of contagion, do I really need to get out? Being stuck at home is not easy but neighter as easy nor as terrible as some would think: it simply has to be done.
- idiocratic 7y ago
  Lockdown in Italy is a concept that is difficult to enforce. And it's probably very different to what it means in China or even just South Korea or any other more organised and centrally governed country in Europe like France. But in essence: Schools are closed until next month. People can still move around freely for work reasons, and in general people still work in offices. Bars and restaurants close after 18pm. Shops are closed only on weekends. People over 65 have free deliveries from most supermarkets, but very few use them. Big groups of people are not allowed outside public places. The social structure in Italy is still very much based on families, so people will remain with their close relatives and go out for a walk around home.
  - greggyb 7y ago
    Completely random and off-topic. I'm in the US and used to 12-hour time. I personally prefer 24-hour time, and am comfortable with 18:00 or similar for a time indicator. I don't know that I've ever seen a 24-hour time with am/pm attached to it. Is this common?
    - J_cst 7y ago
      not at all, it just seems a misprint / little error
    - giuscri 7y ago
      No, at least not in Italy. In fact, I don't think it makes any sense.
    - HelloNurse 7y ago
      Just a bit of redundancy, to compensate USA Covid-19 tests.
    - idiocratic 7y ago
      You're right. My mistake.
    - technothrasher 7y ago
      To feed off your random comment, I live in the US as well but switched all of my clocks (that I was able to) over to 24-hour time a few years ago. It just makes more sense to me. But everybody around me thinks I'm some sort of weirdo for it.
      - Marsymars 7y ago
        I've got a handful of software (Skype, my ereader) that don't have 24h time options. Super annoying, especially for software where all they'd have to do is use the OS time convention.
        ygra 7y ago
        I've found that a lot of software that moved to Electron or similar solutions has trouble adhering to OS settings. Heck, even Chrome ignores my date format in the history tag. That's what you get with a technology that's not really supposed to interact with the user's OS settings much.
      - cowmoo728 7y ago
        I switched everything I could to C, km, 24 hour time, and YYYY-MM-DD. US social conventions around measurements are just obtuse.
- J_cst 7y ago
  I have been reviewing the situation with a colleague of mine, and we have now realized that the new measures are not enough. It makes no sense to allow burger king or any bar to stay open util 6 p.m. And it makes no sense to allow to go to work for any undeferrable (or also deferrable) reason. The only effective measure seems logically to be quarantine, and for me and my family (2+2), from tomorrow afternoon quarantine will be. The government will finally arrive to the same conclusion, but a later stage. At the moment they seem to be still trying to balance the counteracting of the epidemic and the economic damage, but to us that's not the correct thing to do.
  - Rapzid 7y ago
    I believe it's largely political posturing at this point in every country.
    - loopz 7y ago
      It's being modelled and shaping policies. It makes no sense to try to stop it, cease all activity. That's too late, difficult and costly. But it makes sense to delay and spread it over time. So measures need to be, imperfect.
      - Rapzid 7y ago
        I can see the sense in slowing the spread to help the medical system cope.
  - afiori 7y ago
    The problem with this is that a 14 day total economic halt will be devastating. Even assuming all office workers work remote basic social structure will be endangered. The hospitals need to stay open, people need to keep operating water and electricity utilities, food distribution needs to continue as many do not have 14 days of stock at home. It is not about those dams politician that only care about reelection numbers, it also about keeping the wheel of society turning. To say nothing of how much total hysteria that would cause.
- napolux 7y ago
  Italian here: not really a lockdown, we can go to work and the country discovered remote working. Supermarkets are open, pharmacies too. No shortage of goods except surgical masks
- thefz 7y ago
  So far, nothing has changed except there's less and less people in the streets. Tomorrow I'm commuting to work as usual.
- pmontra 7y ago
  It's hard or impossible to meet with friends, especially if living in distant places. Think living before cars. No dinners at restaurants. Probably no take aways after 6 pm. Dinner is usually at 8 or 9 pm here. It's difficult to practice sports, except running or whatever you can do at home. Everything else is normal. I already worked from home, self employed.
- C19is20 7y ago
  N.italy, all ok. Less people around, shops ok: i withdraw cash every day, rather than waiting for the gov to do it for me. Which they will, then they'll find a away [o line their pockets with it. Nb never voted, never will, but italians are already being political about this. Seen a few comments here, too. The real impact will be when the rest of eu gets hit. At least day2day italians know you can't blame any single person/ location as you don't know how you'll get infected.
  - IAmEveryone 7y ago
    If you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain.
- polyterative 7y ago
  Developer here, we now work in separate rooms in the office. Gotta work remotely if someone gets infected I guess. My train to work is 10% the usual people. Social life is voip only now. Groceries are still easy to get, even If there's 3x the people at the queues. People with children have to work from home if they can, schools are closed
fulvioterzapi 7y ago
The government is calling to unity, and the situation is tragic enough that no-one can ignore the call. However the left wing (and the current ruling coalition) has some serious responsibilities here, and I hope they are held accountable once this mess is over. A few weeks ago we were told that 'the only virus there is, is racism', implying that people worried about the virus spreading were doing so because of an anti-Chinese sentiment. The other popular talking point was that there are more flu deaths every year, so one shouldn't worry. I see a link between this attitude and the current disaster. The situation is bad, though. I was particularly shocked by an ICU medic from Lombardia declaring that in his hospital they cannot treat all the patients, and that they have to select those that appear to have the highest survival chances, something you do in times of war. (throwaway since my coworkers know my username here, and they wouldn't like my political opinions, I hope this is allowed, otherwise please remove.)
- egeozcan 7y ago
  Left or right, all governments seem to be doing less than stellar job fighting this, to say the least. I don't understand why it is relevant.
  - fulvioterzapi 7y ago
    I think Italy is doing a bit worse than all other countries. Please re-read what I wrote, because I made the link with the current left-wing coalition very clear. I'll rewrite it here for your convenience: I pointed out that initially the left wing underplayed the threat, while accusing people taking precautions of doing so in the name of racism. "The only virus there is, is racism", they told us. "The flu makes more victims, so we shouldn't worry", they told us. That's why I am talking about the left wing and their reckless behaviour.
    - Jare 7y ago
      > I think Italy is doing a bit worse that all other governments It is the first western government to fucking react (even if forced to) and show everyone else the road ahead. And everyone else keeps acting like they hope it's not going to happen to them.
vkou 7y ago
For anyone claiming that this is just a flu: I've never heard of an entire country being shut down because of the flu.
- dpcan 7y ago
  I've never heard of 14 people dying in a 120-bed nursing home of the seasonal flu in a 3 week time span either, but the Coronavirus is making that happen in Kirkland, WA right now. Actually, about 30 people have died, but since they don't have enough tests, they can't say that it was Coronavirus. My wife is an administrator at a Nursing facility that is much larger, and this many people DYING so quickly is terrifying.
  - hef19898 7y ago
    Do you have any numbers or is it just anecdotal? Because when worked in a nursing home back the day, the seasonal flus was already bad enough, so...
    - ThisIsTheWay 7y ago
      I'm not OP, but it's a quick search. "Nineteen of those who died in King County were residents of Life Care Center, a nursing home in Kirkland, according to Public Health - Seattle & King County. Researchers say the virus may have been circulating undetected for weeks."[0] [0] - https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/coronavirus-number-confirmed-cases-more-than-100-virus-moves-more-counties/XIDPHMLVOJAAREQ5YCL75367PU/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/coronavirus-number-confirme...
      - dpcan 7y ago
        Yeah, they are saying now that there's a 5 day incubation period for COVID19. Without widespread testing, we are going to have no idea how bad this is and how seriously fast we need to lock down facilities, particularly nursing homes, and this particular nursing home has shown that in a lot of places, the disease is going to strike and kill FAST.
      - 7y ago
fosk 7y ago
Italy is a country of 60M+ people and the 8th largest economy in the world, with a very high national debt and that significantly relies on tourism for its economy. Above and beyond the Coronavirus, this can terribly affect the long-term solvency of the country.
- ThisIsTheWay 7y ago
  Fully agreed, this is a big concern of mine as well. We've got a 2 week trip planned to Italy in May, but that is likely to get cancelled this week based on the growing concerns throughout the country. I am fully expecting to reschedule our same trip later in the year, but until the virus starts to slow down significantly, I'm not comfortable rebooking.
  - wpasc 7y ago
    have a trip scheduled first 2 weeks in june, also unsure of what to do
    - ThisIsTheWay 7y ago
      We had a cutoff-date approaching for refundability of one of our bookings, otherwise we would have waited to see what happens over the next few weeks. If you can afford to wait, I'd ride it out a bit longer.
    - pmontra 7y ago
      My gut feeling from Italy: May, difficult. June, maybe. But expect that this disease expands to almost everywhere so what's going to be the status of your country by then, regardless where you are from? I'm not expecting to be able to travel much this summer, not because I'm from Italy but because every country is going to have its own share of problems.
      - dsiegel2275 7y ago
        Thoughts on the UK? I'm supposed to go on a vacation to England for a week starting April 1st
01100011 7y ago
I'm curious, do we have good data on typical influenza infection rates per month, and if so, are we seeing a sooner than expected drop in influenza transmissions? I figure it would be a good gauge of how well people are adopting safer hygiene protocols.
- hdjrorkdk 7y ago
  Way too soon for that, but it will be investigated in the future.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  Influenza statistics vary so heavily year-to-year, I expect it'd be hard to detect the change no matter how well people are adopting better hygiene.
- krrrh 7y ago
  This has been seen in Hong Kong already. It's been noted that residents there were very receptive to social distancing measures due to their experience with SARS in 2003. Data provided by the government’s Centre for Health Protection show the incidence of infection with influenza had fallen to less than 1 per cent by the end of February, marking an end to the winter flu season, which normally extends to the end of March or into April. ... Ho Pak-leung, a leading microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong, said data showed the flu season had shortened from an average of 98.7 days to 34 days this year. https://www.ft.com/content/ad7ae6b4-5eab-11ea-b0ab-339c2307bcd4 https://www.ft.com/content/ad7ae6b4-5eab-11ea-b0ab-339c2307b... * Twitter link to above to possibly bypass paywall: https://twitter.com/Birdyword/status/1236491746541895685?s=20 https://twitter.com/Birdyword/status/1236491746541895685?s=2...
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    "It's been noted that residents there were very receptive to social distancing measures due to their experience with SARS in 2003" It's going to be interesting how society changes as a result of this, for those of us who live through it.
labarilem 7y ago
Official GitHub repository for COVID-19 data in Italy: https://github.com/pcm-dpc/COVID-19 https://github.com/pcm-dpc/COVID-19
paganel 7y ago
Unreal, a month ago (February 7th) I was posting this news story [1] related to the city of Shenzen which was about to be put into some form of lockdown, it only received one upvote. A month from that event and we have an entire European country (a G7 member to add) under lockdown. I guess the normalcy bias [2] was too strong for too many people until reality hit us hard in the face. [1] https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/20/2/8/n11853273.htm https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/20/2/8/n11853273.htm [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  I feel like it's less a matter of normalcy bias, and more that people reasonably distrust a Falun Gong newspaper written in a language they can't read.
  - paganel 7y ago
    For a while this Falun gong member [1] was one of the few persons who was publishing real news and videos of what was happening in Wuhan and in China as a whole. [1] https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      How do you know that the news and videos she was publishing were real?
      - paganel 7y ago
        Because news organisations like the FT or the BBC published the same news that she had published two or three days before. Granted, she was not the only one publishing them on Twitter, but she was the one I was following the most. Also to add, news organisations like the FT or the BBC were only publishing news that could be taken for a political spin, like in the case of Li Wenliang, they were not publishing news about people committing suicide on their home as not to infect their loved ones or desperate phone calls made by people who were trying to get their loved ones into an hospital (which were already full by that point). Also, many of the hospital scenes I was seeing on Twitter on her account are similar to what now surfaces from hospitals located in Northern Italy.
deleted 7y ago
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cleandreams 7y ago
The fatality rate of Italy is scary high. I read the reason is that they have such a high percentage of elderly.
- cm2187 7y ago
  ...or not a very good coverage in term of testing.
  - napolux 7y ago
    We’re testing more than any country in Europe (or the USA)
    - zaroth 7y ago
      A useful metric is the number of tests which are coming back positive. I’d say if it’s 3% or higher then you are testing limited.
      - bonzini 7y ago
        It's 10%. Not unexpected since only people with symptoms are being tested.
        zaroth 7y ago
        10% is extremely high. Yeah, that shows that they are severely test restricted and the actual infection rate is significantly higher. That tells me that case count will grow at a rate of test rate * 10% for days to come even if the actual spread has peaked. IMO, and I’m not sure why more people aren’t saying this, the hospitalization rate in the general population under typical exposure rates is probably closer to 1% than it is 10%, and so just multiply the severe or critical cases by 100x to see the general population infection rate. And if severe case count is not growing, than neither was the infection rate ~7 days ago.
- Melting_Harps 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
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DrNuke 7y ago
Tocilizumab drug in Naples hospital seems promising: «The health of the patient suffering from covid 19, who arrived in critical condition, intubated and treated with the new drug therapy is recovering. Maybe we extubate him because his conditions have improved a lot ». They also say they got confirmation from Chinese colleagues who tested that earlier on 21 cases. The drug is now undergoing trial at Roche. https://www.corriere.it/video-articoli/2020/03/09/dopo-cina-anche-italia-test-un-farmaco-casi-gravi-ecco-risultati/9405aebc-622a-11ea-9897-5c6f48cf812d.shtml https://www.corriere.it/video-articoli/2020/03/09/dopo-cina-...
- busyant 7y ago
  If that turns out to be true, it's remarkable how many pathologies are related to our immune systems going haywire.
- Someone1234 7y ago
  I'm incredibly ignorant, can someone explain why a drug used to treat arthritis might work against a Coronavirus? I just don't understand the connection/interaction, or why this was even tried originally? Genuinely looking to learn.
  - tbarbugli 7y ago
    it reduces the immune system reaction inflammatory reaction which can be fatal
  - J_cst 7y ago
    The linked video has interesting explanation. Perhaps someone more versed may upload to YT to get a robotraslation to everybody's benefit?
  - DrNuke 7y ago
    The two doctors in the video say that it interferes with a similar auto-immune reaction that happens at pulmonary level because of the Coronavirus, so that it works.
  - autojoechen 7y ago
627467 7y ago
I'm curious to how does these measures affect individuals ability to get help and solve their problems they may have given the nation wide shutdown. I understand that WHO questioning of China's decision to lockdown of many of it's regions is now seen as helpful in buying the world time to deal with covid19 spread (at the cost of individual freedom and access to help in those lockdown regions). But, don't lockdown also create massive barriers of people, including of those who need access to life essential products/services?
- napolux 7y ago
  Italian here: supermarkets and pharmacies will stay open. We can go to work or leave the house for emergencies. Most of us are working from home, but I won’t call it a “lock down”
- alisonatwork 7y ago
  There has been no product shortages in China except for facemasks. Since the first days of the lockdown till today, e-commerce is still working, deliveries are still being made. Supermarkets and pharmacies are still open. There are reduced hours and the vast majority of brick and mortar shops are closed, but no one is struggling to find daily necessities. One area that does seem to be lacking is gyms, beauty salons, barber shops etc. But really those things are luxuries - people are able to go on without it. Lockdown really sucks but it doesn't suck because of a lack of goods. It sucks because a massive number of people in pink collar/service roles are unable to work. It sucks because the government, and other fearful people, have essentially decided that face-to-face social interaction is not a prerequisite for a functioning society. That might sound fine to someone who is introverted and a homebody anyways, but when interactions have been forced onto the internet or behind masks and checkpoints for months, I dunno... For me it's really trying. I don't so much miss the products of life before coronavirus as I miss the society we had.
CaciaraAsAServi 7y ago
I was not very surprised that Italy turned out to be the (first?) major hit in Europe. Considering the strong business connections, it had to be either us or Germany. We are, as much of the world, importers from China, but many enterprises here are also, somewhat, strong exporters to China (I can see it from my dayjob as industrial automation SI), and if you factor in the small average size of Italian companies requiring many individual contacts (contrast with Germany where companies on average are bigger), you can imagine that there is a strong flow of people to and fro. Maybe the small size of companies requiring more people to establish commercial links + population being more uniformly settled across the country (no huge wildland or sparsely inhabited area left in Po Valley, except maybe some parts of Piedmont?) + a certain cultural inclination for useless quarreling hindering political action + inefficiencies in the administration + an unsolved conflict of power between central gov't and periphery possibly causing some waste of time in other quarreling + having to keep the vast group of small business owners somewhat quiet has resulted in a vast spreading of the virus. The interesting thing is that, if you replace China with Germany in the paragraph above (wrt. the possible German origin of the outbreak in Italy), the consideration about business links would still apply. Another interesting thing I have just noticed is that some journalists are now openly praising the Chinese handling of the crisis. Maybe this may sound strange to an American :D but there has been for some time a growing cross-partisan movement calling for stronger links to China. In fact this movement is somewhat present in European business community, so it is not so special to Italy, but nonetheless it is interesting to see these comments of open praise.
- knee-cartilage 7y ago
  Italy is Iran's largest trading partner out of all the countries in the EU iirc
- C19is20 7y ago
  Live in n. italy. Went shopping today to large supermarket. On way, few people in cars, many people out walking though, especially with kids. Supermarket nose-wipe section hit fairly hard, but that was it. Stockers were tending to other areas (either no nose wipes left, or not bothered?). Nobody was panicking buying. There was a pa with 'keep a meter away from everybody' announce, which made my kid laugh as we'd been watching you tube video on how far a sneeze can travel. Italians are touchy-feely poeople and this scare might make them take things a bit more seriously healthwise. Friday, i have a hospital appointment for a recent leg injury - will let you know :-) as three weeks ago i was in hospital for 6 days and i got the impression they were 'preparing' for a big outbreak - very few actual doctors around, nurses stepping up, orderlies assisting nurses with basics.
giovan-ni 7y ago
I think the sequence of choices is what matters most. First they ‘quarantined’ Lombardia and some surrounding provinces. This looked nonsensical, or worse, as the contagion spread was nationwide already. Not two full days after, they are extending the restrictive measures to the whole of Italy. The net result is to have scared back home a lot of people working or studying in Lombardia, thereby easing the potential burden on the collapsing regional health system. The restrictive measures themselves are hardly enforceable, with some very important exceptions, e.g. schools. Hopefully, they would induce some change in habits. I am from Milano, and my daily life has certainly been affected. I left the city two weeks ago. It was easy for me, though, as I can distance teach and I have a place in the mountains.
- srg0 7y ago
  The new decree is probably a response to many potentially contagious people fleeing to the south. As I see it, if the draft version of the previous decree were not leaked, the final version would not cause so many people to run away. Frankly, I expected that these measures will be extended to the entire country not later than by the end of the week. We're still in the exponential growth phase.
  - giovan-ni 7y ago
    You are right about the leakage. The final decree places no restrictions on traveling back to residence, and even admits self-certification of other reasons for traveling. I am not sure you are right in assuming the leakage was unintended, though. If they wanted people to run, the effective way was to force a choice under the imminent and vague threat of being trapped in the ‘red zone’.
- theNJR 7y ago
  You left really early. What indicators were you looking at to make the call? Is it just you? In a major west coast city and trying to think through when to leave. Too early better than too late but I don’t have a cabin in the mountains so it will be a significant cost to hide out for a month.
joaomacp 7y ago
This sounds authoritarian as fuck, you have to sign a document to say why you're outside. Some countries are following the chinese example of "authoritarian democracy", particularly European countries with big commercial ties to China. Then you have the reverse side of things: USA, where not even tests are being done in obviously suspect cases. But people can still go to work, buy things, live their life. There's pros and cons to both approaches, but compared to how H1N1 was handled I definitely see a turn to authoritarianism, at least in Italy.
bArray 7y ago
Just spoken to an Italian friend, apparently they got a few hours notice before this was enforced (much more kept under-wraps than the previous quarantine of Northern Italy). Expect other Western European Countries to follow this pattern as the number of cases increase [1]. I would specifically be looking at France, Spain and Germany as potential next candidates. If people here haven't already, I would recommend not leaving your shopping to the last minute and to stock up on a few extra supplies to help not exhaust the local food-chain when people do start panic buying. [1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
- Curzel 7y ago
  Yes we were told by Conte, the Prime minister, around 21.30 (march 9th). Goes live at midnight
- toyg 7y ago
  > much more kept under-wraps than the previous quarantine of Northern Italy Without that irresponsible leak, and the irresponsible reaction of people trying to "escape", this total lockdown would probably not be necessary. People sometimes are right shits.
  - bArray 7y ago
    > Without that irresponsible leak, and the irresponsible > reaction of people trying to "escape", this total lockdown > would probably not be necessary. The leak was far from ideal, but I still think Italy would be in the same situation. I suspect there were already an un-contained spread in the South before the lockdown in the North. > People sometimes are right shits. This is still true, but I am not so sure they can be completely blamed. When people are scared they act irrationally and this should be incorporated into any plan.
- Nursie 7y ago
  People in the UK have already been panic buying, mostly pasta and toilet roll AFAICT
maremmano 7y ago
What surprises me is the number of deaths in relation to the number of infections. Even higher than Iran where I would expect less effective patient management than in northern Italy. What is your opinion on this?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- thalassos 7y ago
  The average age in italy is much beyond 50 (60 million population) and we have 3000 ICU in total. Yes.
  - T-A 7y ago
    In 2019, the average age of the Italian population was 45.4 years: https://www.statista.com/statistics/569187/average-age-of-the-population-in-italy-by-region/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/569187/average-age-of-th...
- pbourke 7y ago
  Iran's numbers are either undercounted or under reported.
- anonuser123456 7y ago
  30% of the population is over 60. Only 17% of the Chinese`population is over 60. We should expect to see a devastating impact on Italy with a much higher CFR. https://www.populationpyramid.net/italy/2020/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/italy/2020/
  - adventured 7y ago
    And yet Germany (median age 48, nearly the oldest in the world, slightly older than Italy and similar to Japan) has seen only two deaths so far out of ~1,100 cases. I've yet to see a definitive explanation for the extreme difference between what we're seeing in Italy vs South Korea vs Germany when it comes to mortality rates. Italy has a developed-world, universal healthcare system. Perhaps the cases in Germany are not far enough in yet to produce a higher rate of death (seems unlikely, in many cases elsewhere older patients are dying rapidly). The only explanation that seems plausible that I've seen, is that their healthcare system (locally) was quickly overwhelmed and they're leaving the worst cases to die, unable to tend to them.
dang 7y ago
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22527796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22527796
H8crilA 7y ago
So this is awaiting all countries, in all likelihood? I mean what's the difference between Italy and Switzerland? Or Germany? Or the United States?
- missosoup 7y ago
  The united states is going to fare a lot worse. Their president is actively contradicting his own experts and essentially encouraging people to go on spreading the disease. It's going to be a clusterfuck.
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    People in other countries put too much weight in what the president says, Trump or otherwise, because they don't fully understand that there is an entire system of government that can fully function with or without the president. I won't go so far as to say that the position of the president is a figurehead, but it's been more than a little advisory for several generations. I watch a lot of BBC, NHK, and DW, and see it all the time. I don't blame the foreign journalists. If you're an overseas news organization working in America, of course the president is going to be fully staffed. But few orgs go much beyond that. Because of this, the European view of how America works is very simplified.
    - pbourke 7y ago
      In this case the President has weaponized the virus as a political issue. A sizeable number of people in the country don't believe that it's a serious issue and won't until their local hospitals are literally overrun. Maybe even not then. I believe you are seriously underestimating the effect of chaff being thrown into the air over this issue on a number of fronts. It makes it much, much harder to have people follow public health advice or put pressure on lawmakers to pass the necessary appropriations that will be required to address the situation.
    - akiselev 7y ago
      > there is an entire system of government that can fully function with or without the president. Except when a major global catastrophe hits, like a pandemic, the response requires massive coordination across local, state, and federal levels. What he says now may not be so relevant but the president's lack of appoints to key executive branch positions within the CDC and the rest of the healthcare apparatus (including eliminating health related positions from the National Security Council, one of the most important multi-agency coordination bodies) has drastically hampered the COVID-19 response effort. People from other countries more often tend to underestimate the sheer scale and complexity created by a local-state-federal separation of powers weighed down by over two hundred years of judicial baggage and thousands of miles of geography. In a crisis like this, even figuring out who has legal jurisdiction and authority is complicated. Doing it without an effective executive body, whose job is to navigate and command that mess, is far more difficult.
lend000 7y ago
It seems like these actions taken by governments will ultimately be futile, so the question is: can a vaccine or effective antiviral be developed fast enough to be worth the ~2-4 months of "slow spread" that can be bought in exchange for the economic and social slowdowns a country will sustain by creating massive quarantines like this? While an authoritarian government may be better suited to positively addressing some very specific problems (such as a pandemic), I do not personally consider the benefits to be worth the costs of infringing on everyone's freedoms. A government built around liberty and individual rights simply cannot enforce a sufficiently useful quarantine here to contain something approximately as infectious as the flu. Even China, which has severely curbed the spread of the coronavirus at tremendous expense, is still dealing with an exponential decay of new cases, at best. At the current rate (and assuming no incoming infections from abroad), it could take China a full year to go 14 days with no new cases. And if they let up restrictions sooner than that, perhaps they will lose ground to the virus once more. It does not seem sustainable. Also note that most cases are not being tested and reported. Anecdotally, I have second degree connections who are mildly infected and being responsible (although still probably exposing some people who live near them), but see no point of getting tested because they don't need the hospital and it's just an extra trip out in public. Other seemingly sick people are out and about in the city in which I live, coughing without covering their mouths in busy areas, etc. Perhaps I am just noticing it more, but I suspect the official case numbers are still off by a factor of 10 or more, so considering roughly a million people are likely infected throughout the world, containment is a fantasy at this point.
- caconym_ 7y ago
  Assuming that survival grants some level of immunity, if you can flatten the curve of the epidemic, you can make a limited supply of hospital beds, supplies, and personnel go a lot further.
  - lend000 7y ago
    This is a good point, and I think it is reasonable to start with the immunity assumption, since it is generally the case for respiratory viruses. Still, I wonder what the math looks like. It has indeed been shown that flu outbreaks in ideal conditions are more intense, but conversely, the flu seasons are shorter [0]. If medical attention makes a significant difference in patient outcome, then the longer virus season is presumably preferable. However, the significance of medical attention needs to somehow be weighed against the total number of people who end up being infected and the costs of shutting down pieces of the global economy for longer periods of time (not to mention limiting individual rights.) Consider that less vulnerable people may be more likely to become infected in their daily lives since they are more active and likely come into contact with more people. In this case, a faster outbreak with many mild cases may actually result in faster herd immunity, and therefore fewer total infections in vulnerable populations. Perhaps a partial quarantine of at-risk populations is the best solution. [0] https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/10/big-cities-have-longer-flu-seasons-while-small-cities-have-more-intense-ones/572161/ https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/10/big-cities-have-...
ouid 7y ago
Why can't this be upvoted?
moultano 7y ago
This is an account from one of the doctors in Italy. https://twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/1237142891077697538?s=19 https://twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/123714289107769753... Read the whole thing, but this passage in particular is just chilling. "5/ Patients above 65 or younger with comorbidities are not even assessed by ITU, I am not saying not tubed, I’m saying not assessed and no ITU staff attends when they arrest. Staff are working as much as they can but they are starting to get sick and are emotionally overwhelmed."
- hnaccy 7y ago
  Does that mean they're just triaging them and letting them die?
  - techolic 7y ago
    It hurts me to say this, but that's what happened in Wuhan for the first few weeks.
    - Gatsky 7y ago
      Could you just clarify how you got this information? Did you witness it directly?
      - Nuzzerino 7y ago
        There was a video taken of one of the hospitals in Wuhan around that time, with what looked like at least 1000 people lined up and corpses in the hallways. Put two and two together.
  - rorykoehler 7y ago
    That's exactly what it means. If you go in /r/europe there was an interview with a doctor posted confirming this https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ffs5ng/coronavirus_doctor_in_bergamo_its_like_a_war_we/ https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ffs5ng/coronavirus_...
  - 7y ago
Medicalidiot 7y ago
All my medical colleagues kept saying this was bad. In the first cohorts of patients, 10-20% needed ICU level care. I have privy to the latest peer reviewed guidelines for medicine and had a double take when I read the initial complications: 19.6% Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). ARDS has a supportive type of treatment, which means that we give you all the basics for life and hope that you pull through. It's the last resort of care. It's only ~150 people, that statistics might be off. Then the cohort study came out that was looking at 44k patients. It lined up with the first cohort so close you could consider it a rounding error. Folks, get mentally ready to know someone that will die because of this. Luckily, almost everyone in this thread will be alive, but those that have diabetes, cancer, coronary artery disease, and the elderly are the ones who will have poor outcomes because of it. >http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9a9b-fea8db1a8f51 http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9... >https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32031570-clinical-characteristics-of-138-hospitalized-patients-with-2019-novel-coronavirus-infected-pneumonia-in-wuhan-china/?dopt=Abstract https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32031570-clinical-characteri... >https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31986264-clinical-features-of-patients-infected-with-2019-novel-coronavirus-in-wuhan-china/?dopt=Abstract https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31986264-clinical-features-o... >https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32007143-epidemiological-and-clinical-characteristics-of-99-cases-of-2019-novel-coronavirus-pneumonia-in-wuhan-china-a-descriptive-study/?dopt=Abstract https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32007143-epidemiological-and...
jashkenas 7y ago
The Italian Department of Civil Protection is now publishing detailed confirmed case statistics on GitHub. I just finished throwing together a little animated map of of how it's been spreading across provinces: https://observablehq.com/@jashkenas/italy-coronavirus-daily-cases-map-covid-19 https://observablehq.com/@jashkenas/italy-coronavirus-daily-...
- tomerico 7y ago
  Super interesting. For once it doesn’t look like a population density map.
  - jashkenas 7y ago
    Thanks! It should keep updating every day, as new numbers are published.
  - digikata 7y ago
    I suspect if you laid transportation networks and commerce centers over the data there would be some alignment.
- emme 7y ago
  Very nice, thank you! I reply with my humble contribution, based mainly on John Hopkins' data. I tried to understand if the effect of restrictions is already visible (I hope it will... since I live in Milan), thus I fitted an exponential on the data from the week before March 1 (when the initial mild restrictions started) and compared with the actual growth. https://www.kaggle.com/mattiamonga/covid19 https://www.kaggle.com/mattiamonga/covid19 The model is quite simplistic, but the decrease seems real. Let's hope a bigger one will happen in the next days.
peter303 7y ago
The US case growth and death growth curves are same as Italy ten days ago (Feb 28 & 29 respectively for March 9). I wonder if the US will take as drastic actions, or perhaps individual US states.
bekseju 7y ago
There is 'encouraging signs' in Korea's COVID-19 outbreak. I hope to Italy is also going to get through it. Here is KCDC's English daily reports about COVID-19. https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=0030 https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=00...
justlexi93 7y ago
The world is affected by Covid-19, most of the groceries have limited supplies it it seems like a lot of people did hoard for food.
duchenne 7y ago
Is anyone here aware of some research trying to quantify the death toll of such a large-scale quarantine? For instance, closing universities could result many years later in ill-trained doctors and then bad diagnostics. The economic downfalls could result in an increase of poverty and homelessness-related deaths and suicides.
- llamataboot 7y ago
  What? I do think that doctors in training will be able to go back to school in a few months. Have you missed the part about hospitals being on the edge of being overwhelmed already?
- federicoterzi 7y ago
  Italian student here! Now most universities offer remote lessons/exams over the internet (in my case with Microsoft Teams).
- aaron695 7y ago
  A human life is worth around $2 million in the West. Estimate the economic loss and you have a back of a napkin death toll. But no, people don't seem to be talking about it.
llamataboot 7y ago
The US really really /really/ needs to get out in front of this. We have the lowest per-capita testing rate in the world, there are likely already significant outbreaks in Seattle, Santa Clara co, NYC, and DC. Probably elsewhere. We are literally like 12 days behind and can see into our future. If this virus does indeed require such intense hospital resources (as in Wuhan and now Northern Italy) letting it spike is just madness. Must put into place heavy restrictions now. We don't need travel lockdowns, but public events, movie theatres, etc should be closed, and businesses should be highly urged to allow workers to WFH if nec and/or try furloughs with public money (ha! good luck...) In any case, just waiting until we see a spike in cases and then trying to get behind it seems like so much madness. Large sports events? Museums? sigh
- forgotmyhnacc 7y ago
  It's absolutely astounding that Disney Land and world are still open.
  - dvcrn 7y ago
    Disney Land and Disney Sea here in Tokyo closed down. So did USJ in Osaka.
    - forgotmyhnacc 7y ago
      Was referring to the US as the parent commenter was focused on that.
- newtoday 7y ago
  SXSW, South by Southwest music festival was cancelled (sadly so, but good), amongst other events, but definitely not enough yet.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  Well, The only thing that be called reasonable statistic is the number of deaths and that hasn't spiked - I hate to say - yet. It's possible hospitals are even missing those, it's a big country. And it's a dispersed country so things might not spread as quickly. But other, what you say. Stopping large public events and doing mass testing seems crucial. South Korea seems to have gotten a handle on their infection process at the moment things are out-of-hand in Italy. South Korea has done mass testing for a while.
presiozo 7y ago
This is how a global crisis begins. The virus is spread more than we know and it's getting further
anotheryou 7y ago
and i have to beg for home office here in germany...
- a_imho 7y ago
  Would denying remote work (if applicable) open up companies to lawsuits?
tome 7y ago
If anyone wants to help out they might like to consider joining this volunteer effort. There are people working on data analysis and visualisation, communications and messaging, and other efforts. https://www.endcoronavirus.org/ https://www.endcoronavirus.org/
lormayna 7y ago
I am living in Italy (not in the zones where the virus starts spreading) and I want to say that our healthcare system is still working even if it's struggling. The big problem is that the number of places for critical care is going to saturate; they are starting moving sick persons from Lombardia to other regions in order to reduce pressure on the critical care hospitals departments. The number of death is so high because they count person who had other illness (cancer, heart disease, etc) and because we have lot of elder persons (the probability of dying is higher for over 75). I just hope that other government in Europe will take it seriously, because it seems spreading fast over France, Germany, Spain and Netherlands.
- BiteCode_dev 7y ago
  > The number of death is so high because they count person who had other illness (cancer, heart disease, etc) and because we have lot of elder persons (the probability of dying is higher for over 75). I don't know how the count is made, but since the pressure will affect the care for the other patients as well, it makes sense to at least take them in consideration in the stats.
  - lormayna 7y ago
    Yes, it make sense. The strange value is the one from Germany with more than 1000 cases and only 2 died. I suspect that the criteria for counting the death is not the same across different EU countries.
    - mister_hn 7y ago
      and information hiding (to preserve Economy or to avoid Panic) plays a role here
LeanderK 7y ago
Since the mortality for younger people seems to be quite low I wonder, given the serious circumstances, whether it would be useful to give some (maybe volunteers?) medical staff in endangered regions "controlled" exposures to corona-virus so that the hospitals don't have a staffing problem due to sick doctors/nurses if a serious outbreak happens.
mlang23 7y ago
The voting system on HN is being used to punish those that try to stay calm and put things into perspective. Frankly, this actually surprises me. Either I always have had a distored view of the hacker culture, or some large scale manipulation is going on. Since I am not inclined to believe in conspiracy theories, I guess I was always wrong about the hacker culture and its people. And now, let the donwvotes come. I am pretty done with this site anyway. BTW, why doesn't HN allow me to delete my account? This seems worse then FaceBook. Even Twitter lets you delete your account and your posts. I smell bigotry, and that is why I want to run away.
mk89 7y ago
I hope other countries follow the same example. China gave a great demonstration that it's unfortunately the only way to stop such a thing from spreading. People just don't give a f*. Here the cases country by country: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ It's interesting to see that the growth is almost everywhere the same. In some countries it just started earlier. It took just 1 week (or 5 days min) to have cases from less than 100 to roughly 1000. Same in Italy, same in S. Korea, same in Germany, etc.
vishnuharidas 7y ago
Three people travelled from Venice, Italy to Kerala on Feb 29th and skipped the tests at the airport. Today Kerala has confirmed 12 cases of COVID-19 and around 3000 people are under observation.
Yetanfou 7y ago
This is supposed to be a trasnscription of some Whatsapp calls between medical personnel in the north and south of Italy where the northerners try to update the southerners on the situation https://files.catbox.moe/3ns6c1.mp4 https://files.catbox.moe/3ns6c1.mp4 This file is several weeks old by now, a search on the 'net finds a number of pages where the link is mentioned (including one from the 21st of januari 2020 - according to Google that is - hoax alert? if so a prescient hoax in that they knew it would start in the north of Italy). This being the internet it it hard to ascertain the veracity of the thing. If it is for real it sounds way worse than e.g. the situation on the cruise ship 'Diamond Princess' which saw 700+ infections but only a few deaths as far as I know, nor does it tally with the situation in Korea. In the (supposed) transcription they talk about a larger number of cases in younger people without existing medical conditions, again something which goes counter the current narrative. One of the possible explanations given for the higher mortality in Italy (~4%) compared to Korea (~0.7%) is that Italy has a generally older population (the oldest in Europe) but that does not explain the mentioned incidence of cases among younger people. Of course the way countries count 'cases' can also differ so there is another possible explanation but this still does not explain those cases among younger people.
- jfkebwjsbx 7y ago
  Facepalm. Are you really still claiming this is not real?
  - Yetanfou 7y ago
    No, I am claiming that this specific sound file might not be real given that there are references to it from the 21st of january (i.e. way before it hit Italy) and given the stated incidence of cases in younger people while the narrative is that the disease is mostly mild in those under 50. There is no doubt that there is a pandemic going on, I can see it happen around me here in Sweden.
    - jfkebwjsbx 7y ago
      My apologies then.
swordsmith 7y ago
Would make more sense for the elderly and vulnerable, and those that work/live in close proximity with those to be self-quarantined. Makes little sense to apply those measures to the young and healthy, for whom the effects (both symptoms and mortality rate) are similar to contracting flu without vaccine.

787 points by colinprince 7y ago

alfyboy 7y ago

For anybody living in quarantined areas of Italy. How much has your daily life been affected?

nick2k3 7y ago
writing from Pavia(Lombardia), 15 min of drive from the city where the first cases have developed. There is less people on the street but still too many people conducting normal life, taking public transport or having drinks etc in crowded places. These new measures are meant to force to change lifestyle and be more conscious of the risks. Daily life has changed in that you stay at home, work at home,think twice every time you need to go to the store: do I really need it? It's a possible vehicle of contagion, do I really need to get out? Being stuck at home is not easy but neighter as easy nor as terrible as some would think: it simply has to be done.
idiocratic 7y ago
Lockdown in Italy is a concept that is difficult to enforce. And it's probably very different to what it means in China or even just South Korea or any other more organised and centrally governed country in Europe like France. But in essence: Schools are closed until next month. People can still move around freely for work reasons, and in general people still work in offices. Bars and restaurants close after 18pm. Shops are closed only on weekends. People over 65 have free deliveries from most supermarkets, but very few use them. Big groups of people are not allowed outside public places. The social structure in Italy is still very much based on families, so people will remain with their close relatives and go out for a walk around home.
- greggyb 7y ago
  Completely random and off-topic. I'm in the US and used to 12-hour time. I personally prefer 24-hour time, and am comfortable with 18:00 or similar for a time indicator. I don't know that I've ever seen a 24-hour time with am/pm attached to it. Is this common?
  - J_cst 7y ago
    not at all, it just seems a misprint / little error
  - giuscri 7y ago
    No, at least not in Italy. In fact, I don't think it makes any sense.
  - HelloNurse 7y ago
    Just a bit of redundancy, to compensate USA Covid-19 tests.
  - idiocratic 7y ago
    You're right. My mistake.
  - technothrasher 7y ago
    To feed off your random comment, I live in the US as well but switched all of my clocks (that I was able to) over to 24-hour time a few years ago. It just makes more sense to me. But everybody around me thinks I'm some sort of weirdo for it.
    - Marsymars 7y ago
      I've got a handful of software (Skype, my ereader) that don't have 24h time options. Super annoying, especially for software where all they'd have to do is use the OS time convention.
      - ygra 7y ago
        I've found that a lot of software that moved to Electron or similar solutions has trouble adhering to OS settings. Heck, even Chrome ignores my date format in the history tag. That's what you get with a technology that's not really supposed to interact with the user's OS settings much.
    - cowmoo728 7y ago
      I switched everything I could to C, km, 24 hour time, and YYYY-MM-DD. US social conventions around measurements are just obtuse.
J_cst 7y ago
I have been reviewing the situation with a colleague of mine, and we have now realized that the new measures are not enough. It makes no sense to allow burger king or any bar to stay open util 6 p.m. And it makes no sense to allow to go to work for any undeferrable (or also deferrable) reason. The only effective measure seems logically to be quarantine, and for me and my family (2+2), from tomorrow afternoon quarantine will be. The government will finally arrive to the same conclusion, but a later stage. At the moment they seem to be still trying to balance the counteracting of the epidemic and the economic damage, but to us that's not the correct thing to do.
- Rapzid 7y ago
  I believe it's largely political posturing at this point in every country.
  - loopz 7y ago
    It's being modelled and shaping policies. It makes no sense to try to stop it, cease all activity. That's too late, difficult and costly. But it makes sense to delay and spread it over time. So measures need to be, imperfect.
    - Rapzid 7y ago
      I can see the sense in slowing the spread to help the medical system cope.
- afiori 7y ago
  The problem with this is that a 14 day total economic halt will be devastating. Even assuming all office workers work remote basic social structure will be endangered. The hospitals need to stay open, people need to keep operating water and electricity utilities, food distribution needs to continue as many do not have 14 days of stock at home. It is not about those dams politician that only care about reelection numbers, it also about keeping the wheel of society turning. To say nothing of how much total hysteria that would cause.
napolux 7y ago
Italian here: not really a lockdown, we can go to work and the country discovered remote working. Supermarkets are open, pharmacies too. No shortage of goods except surgical masks
thefz 7y ago
So far, nothing has changed except there's less and less people in the streets. Tomorrow I'm commuting to work as usual.
pmontra 7y ago
It's hard or impossible to meet with friends, especially if living in distant places. Think living before cars. No dinners at restaurants. Probably no take aways after 6 pm. Dinner is usually at 8 or 9 pm here. It's difficult to practice sports, except running or whatever you can do at home. Everything else is normal. I already worked from home, self employed.
C19is20 7y ago
N.italy, all ok. Less people around, shops ok: i withdraw cash every day, rather than waiting for the gov to do it for me. Which they will, then they'll find a away [o line their pockets with it. Nb never voted, never will, but italians are already being political about this. Seen a few comments here, too. The real impact will be when the rest of eu gets hit. At least day2day italians know you can't blame any single person/ location as you don't know how you'll get infected.
- IAmEveryone 7y ago
  If you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain.
polyterative 7y ago
Developer here, we now work in separate rooms in the office. Gotta work remotely if someone gets infected I guess. My train to work is 10% the usual people. Social life is voip only now. Groceries are still easy to get, even If there's 3x the people at the queues. People with children have to work from home if they can, schools are closed

fulvioterzapi 7y ago

The government is calling to unity, and the situation is tragic enough that no-one can ignore the call. However the left wing (and the current ruling coalition) has some serious responsibilities here, and I hope they are held accountable once this mess is over. A few weeks ago we were told that 'the only virus there is, is racism', implying that people worried about the virus spreading were doing so because of an anti-Chinese sentiment. The other popular talking point was that there are more flu deaths every year, so one shouldn't worry. I see a link between this attitude and the current disaster. The situation is bad, though. I was particularly shocked by an ICU medic from Lombardia declaring that in his hospital they cannot treat all the patients, and that they have to select those that appear to have the highest survival chances, something you do in times of war. (throwaway since my coworkers know my username here, and they wouldn't like my political opinions, I hope this is allowed, otherwise please remove.)

egeozcan 7y ago
Left or right, all governments seem to be doing less than stellar job fighting this, to say the least. I don't understand why it is relevant.
- fulvioterzapi 7y ago
  I think Italy is doing a bit worse than all other countries. Please re-read what I wrote, because I made the link with the current left-wing coalition very clear. I'll rewrite it here for your convenience: I pointed out that initially the left wing underplayed the threat, while accusing people taking precautions of doing so in the name of racism. "The only virus there is, is racism", they told us. "The flu makes more victims, so we shouldn't worry", they told us. That's why I am talking about the left wing and their reckless behaviour.
  - Jare 7y ago
    > I think Italy is doing a bit worse that all other governments It is the first western government to fucking react (even if forced to) and show everyone else the road ahead. And everyone else keeps acting like they hope it's not going to happen to them.

vkou 7y ago

For anyone claiming that this is just a flu: I've never heard of an entire country being shut down because of the flu.

dpcan 7y ago
I've never heard of 14 people dying in a 120-bed nursing home of the seasonal flu in a 3 week time span either, but the Coronavirus is making that happen in Kirkland, WA right now. Actually, about 30 people have died, but since they don't have enough tests, they can't say that it was Coronavirus. My wife is an administrator at a Nursing facility that is much larger, and this many people DYING so quickly is terrifying.
- hef19898 7y ago
  Do you have any numbers or is it just anecdotal? Because when worked in a nursing home back the day, the seasonal flus was already bad enough, so...
  - ThisIsTheWay 7y ago
    I'm not OP, but it's a quick search. "Nineteen of those who died in King County were residents of Life Care Center, a nursing home in Kirkland, according to Public Health - Seattle & King County. Researchers say the virus may have been circulating undetected for weeks."[0] [0] - https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/coronavirus-number-confirmed-cases-more-than-100-virus-moves-more-counties/XIDPHMLVOJAAREQ5YCL75367PU/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/coronavirus-number-confirme...
    - dpcan 7y ago
      Yeah, they are saying now that there's a 5 day incubation period for COVID19. Without widespread testing, we are going to have no idea how bad this is and how seriously fast we need to lock down facilities, particularly nursing homes, and this particular nursing home has shown that in a lot of places, the disease is going to strike and kill FAST.
    - 7y ago

fosk 7y ago

Italy is a country of 60M+ people and the 8th largest economy in the world, with a very high national debt and that significantly relies on tourism for its economy. Above and beyond the Coronavirus, this can terribly affect the long-term solvency of the country.

ThisIsTheWay 7y ago
Fully agreed, this is a big concern of mine as well. We've got a 2 week trip planned to Italy in May, but that is likely to get cancelled this week based on the growing concerns throughout the country. I am fully expecting to reschedule our same trip later in the year, but until the virus starts to slow down significantly, I'm not comfortable rebooking.
- wpasc 7y ago
  have a trip scheduled first 2 weeks in june, also unsure of what to do
  - ThisIsTheWay 7y ago
    We had a cutoff-date approaching for refundability of one of our bookings, otherwise we would have waited to see what happens over the next few weeks. If you can afford to wait, I'd ride it out a bit longer.
  - pmontra 7y ago
    My gut feeling from Italy: May, difficult. June, maybe. But expect that this disease expands to almost everywhere so what's going to be the status of your country by then, regardless where you are from? I'm not expecting to be able to travel much this summer, not because I'm from Italy but because every country is going to have its own share of problems.
    - dsiegel2275 7y ago
      Thoughts on the UK? I'm supposed to go on a vacation to England for a week starting April 1st

01100011 7y ago

I'm curious, do we have good data on typical influenza infection rates per month, and if so, are we seeing a sooner than expected drop in influenza transmissions? I figure it would be a good gauge of how well people are adopting safer hygiene protocols.

hdjrorkdk 7y ago
Way too soon for that, but it will be investigated in the future.
SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
Influenza statistics vary so heavily year-to-year, I expect it'd be hard to detect the change no matter how well people are adopting better hygiene.
krrrh 7y ago
This has been seen in Hong Kong already. It's been noted that residents there were very receptive to social distancing measures due to their experience with SARS in 2003. Data provided by the government’s Centre for Health Protection show the incidence of infection with influenza had fallen to less than 1 per cent by the end of February, marking an end to the winter flu season, which normally extends to the end of March or into April. ... Ho Pak-leung, a leading microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong, said data showed the flu season had shortened from an average of 98.7 days to 34 days this year. https://www.ft.com/content/ad7ae6b4-5eab-11ea-b0ab-339c2307bcd4 https://www.ft.com/content/ad7ae6b4-5eab-11ea-b0ab-339c2307b... * Twitter link to above to possibly bypass paywall: https://twitter.com/Birdyword/status/1236491746541895685?s=20 https://twitter.com/Birdyword/status/1236491746541895685?s=2...
- perl4ever 7y ago
  "It's been noted that residents there were very receptive to social distancing measures due to their experience with SARS in 2003" It's going to be interesting how society changes as a result of this, for those of us who live through it.

labarilem 7y ago

Official GitHub repository for COVID-19 data in Italy: https://github.com/pcm-dpc/COVID-19 https://github.com/pcm-dpc/COVID-19

paganel 7y ago

Unreal, a month ago (February 7th) I was posting this news story [1] related to the city of Shenzen which was about to be put into some form of lockdown, it only received one upvote. A month from that event and we have an entire European country (a G7 member to add) under lockdown. I guess the normalcy bias [2] was too strong for too many people until reality hit us hard in the face. [1] https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/20/2/8/n11853273.htm https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/20/2/8/n11853273.htm [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
I feel like it's less a matter of normalcy bias, and more that people reasonably distrust a Falun Gong newspaper written in a language they can't read.
- paganel 7y ago
  For a while this Falun gong member [1] was one of the few persons who was publishing real news and videos of what was happening in Wuhan and in China as a whole. [1] https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    How do you know that the news and videos she was publishing were real?
    - paganel 7y ago
      Because news organisations like the FT or the BBC published the same news that she had published two or three days before. Granted, she was not the only one publishing them on Twitter, but she was the one I was following the most. Also to add, news organisations like the FT or the BBC were only publishing news that could be taken for a political spin, like in the case of Li Wenliang, they were not publishing news about people committing suicide on their home as not to infect their loved ones or desperate phone calls made by people who were trying to get their loved ones into an hospital (which were already full by that point). Also, many of the hospital scenes I was seeing on Twitter on her account are similar to what now surfaces from hospitals located in Northern Italy.

deleted 7y ago

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cleandreams 7y ago

The fatality rate of Italy is scary high. I read the reason is that they have such a high percentage of elderly.

cm2187 7y ago
...or not a very good coverage in term of testing.
- napolux 7y ago
  We’re testing more than any country in Europe (or the USA)
  - zaroth 7y ago
    A useful metric is the number of tests which are coming back positive. I’d say if it’s 3% or higher then you are testing limited.
    - bonzini 7y ago
      It's 10%. Not unexpected since only people with symptoms are being tested.
      - zaroth 7y ago
        10% is extremely high. Yeah, that shows that they are severely test restricted and the actual infection rate is significantly higher. That tells me that case count will grow at a rate of test rate * 10% for days to come even if the actual spread has peaked. IMO, and I’m not sure why more people aren’t saying this, the hospitalization rate in the general population under typical exposure rates is probably closer to 1% than it is 10%, and so just multiply the severe or critical cases by 100x to see the general population infection rate. And if severe case count is not growing, than neither was the infection rate ~7 days ago.
Melting_Harps 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

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DrNuke 7y ago

Tocilizumab drug in Naples hospital seems promising: «The health of the patient suffering from covid 19, who arrived in critical condition, intubated and treated with the new drug therapy is recovering. Maybe we extubate him because his conditions have improved a lot ». They also say they got confirmation from Chinese colleagues who tested that earlier on 21 cases. The drug is now undergoing trial at Roche. https://www.corriere.it/video-articoli/2020/03/09/dopo-cina-anche-italia-test-un-farmaco-casi-gravi-ecco-risultati/9405aebc-622a-11ea-9897-5c6f48cf812d.shtml https://www.corriere.it/video-articoli/2020/03/09/dopo-cina-...

busyant 7y ago
If that turns out to be true, it's remarkable how many pathologies are related to our immune systems going haywire.
Someone1234 7y ago
I'm incredibly ignorant, can someone explain why a drug used to treat arthritis might work against a Coronavirus? I just don't understand the connection/interaction, or why this was even tried originally? Genuinely looking to learn.
- tbarbugli 7y ago
  it reduces the immune system reaction inflammatory reaction which can be fatal
- J_cst 7y ago
  The linked video has interesting explanation. Perhaps someone more versed may upload to YT to get a robotraslation to everybody's benefit?
- DrNuke 7y ago
  The two doctors in the video say that it interferes with a similar auto-immune reaction that happens at pulmonary level because of the Coronavirus, so that it works.
- autojoechen 7y ago

627467 7y ago

I'm curious to how does these measures affect individuals ability to get help and solve their problems they may have given the nation wide shutdown. I understand that WHO questioning of China's decision to lockdown of many of it's regions is now seen as helpful in buying the world time to deal with covid19 spread (at the cost of individual freedom and access to help in those lockdown regions). But, don't lockdown also create massive barriers of people, including of those who need access to life essential products/services?

napolux 7y ago
Italian here: supermarkets and pharmacies will stay open. We can go to work or leave the house for emergencies. Most of us are working from home, but I won’t call it a “lock down”
alisonatwork 7y ago
There has been no product shortages in China except for facemasks. Since the first days of the lockdown till today, e-commerce is still working, deliveries are still being made. Supermarkets and pharmacies are still open. There are reduced hours and the vast majority of brick and mortar shops are closed, but no one is struggling to find daily necessities. One area that does seem to be lacking is gyms, beauty salons, barber shops etc. But really those things are luxuries - people are able to go on without it. Lockdown really sucks but it doesn't suck because of a lack of goods. It sucks because a massive number of people in pink collar/service roles are unable to work. It sucks because the government, and other fearful people, have essentially decided that face-to-face social interaction is not a prerequisite for a functioning society. That might sound fine to someone who is introverted and a homebody anyways, but when interactions have been forced onto the internet or behind masks and checkpoints for months, I dunno... For me it's really trying. I don't so much miss the products of life before coronavirus as I miss the society we had.

CaciaraAsAServi 7y ago

I was not very surprised that Italy turned out to be the (first?) major hit in Europe. Considering the strong business connections, it had to be either us or Germany. We are, as much of the world, importers from China, but many enterprises here are also, somewhat, strong exporters to China (I can see it from my dayjob as industrial automation SI), and if you factor in the small average size of Italian companies requiring many individual contacts (contrast with Germany where companies on average are bigger), you can imagine that there is a strong flow of people to and fro. Maybe the small size of companies requiring more people to establish commercial links + population being more uniformly settled across the country (no huge wildland or sparsely inhabited area left in Po Valley, except maybe some parts of Piedmont?) + a certain cultural inclination for useless quarreling hindering political action + inefficiencies in the administration + an unsolved conflict of power between central gov't and periphery possibly causing some waste of time in other quarreling + having to keep the vast group of small business owners somewhat quiet has resulted in a vast spreading of the virus. The interesting thing is that, if you replace China with Germany in the paragraph above (wrt. the possible German origin of the outbreak in Italy), the consideration about business links would still apply. Another interesting thing I have just noticed is that some journalists are now openly praising the Chinese handling of the crisis. Maybe this may sound strange to an American :D but there has been for some time a growing cross-partisan movement calling for stronger links to China. In fact this movement is somewhat present in European business community, so it is not so special to Italy, but nonetheless it is interesting to see these comments of open praise.

knee-cartilage 7y ago
Italy is Iran's largest trading partner out of all the countries in the EU iirc
C19is20 7y ago
Live in n. italy. Went shopping today to large supermarket. On way, few people in cars, many people out walking though, especially with kids. Supermarket nose-wipe section hit fairly hard, but that was it. Stockers were tending to other areas (either no nose wipes left, or not bothered?). Nobody was panicking buying. There was a pa with 'keep a meter away from everybody' announce, which made my kid laugh as we'd been watching you tube video on how far a sneeze can travel. Italians are touchy-feely poeople and this scare might make them take things a bit more seriously healthwise. Friday, i have a hospital appointment for a recent leg injury - will let you know :-) as three weeks ago i was in hospital for 6 days and i got the impression they were 'preparing' for a big outbreak - very few actual doctors around, nurses stepping up, orderlies assisting nurses with basics.

giovan-ni 7y ago

I think the sequence of choices is what matters most. First they ‘quarantined’ Lombardia and some surrounding provinces. This looked nonsensical, or worse, as the contagion spread was nationwide already. Not two full days after, they are extending the restrictive measures to the whole of Italy. The net result is to have scared back home a lot of people working or studying in Lombardia, thereby easing the potential burden on the collapsing regional health system. The restrictive measures themselves are hardly enforceable, with some very important exceptions, e.g. schools. Hopefully, they would induce some change in habits. I am from Milano, and my daily life has certainly been affected. I left the city two weeks ago. It was easy for me, though, as I can distance teach and I have a place in the mountains.

srg0 7y ago
The new decree is probably a response to many potentially contagious people fleeing to the south. As I see it, if the draft version of the previous decree were not leaked, the final version would not cause so many people to run away. Frankly, I expected that these measures will be extended to the entire country not later than by the end of the week. We're still in the exponential growth phase.
- giovan-ni 7y ago
  You are right about the leakage. The final decree places no restrictions on traveling back to residence, and even admits self-certification of other reasons for traveling. I am not sure you are right in assuming the leakage was unintended, though. If they wanted people to run, the effective way was to force a choice under the imminent and vague threat of being trapped in the ‘red zone’.
theNJR 7y ago
You left really early. What indicators were you looking at to make the call? Is it just you? In a major west coast city and trying to think through when to leave. Too early better than too late but I don’t have a cabin in the mountains so it will be a significant cost to hide out for a month.

joaomacp 7y ago

This sounds authoritarian as fuck, you have to sign a document to say why you're outside. Some countries are following the chinese example of "authoritarian democracy", particularly European countries with big commercial ties to China. Then you have the reverse side of things: USA, where not even tests are being done in obviously suspect cases. But people can still go to work, buy things, live their life. There's pros and cons to both approaches, but compared to how H1N1 was handled I definitely see a turn to authoritarianism, at least in Italy.

bArray 7y ago

Just spoken to an Italian friend, apparently they got a few hours notice before this was enforced (much more kept under-wraps than the previous quarantine of Northern Italy). Expect other Western European Countries to follow this pattern as the number of cases increase [1]. I would specifically be looking at France, Spain and Germany as potential next candidates. If people here haven't already, I would recommend not leaving your shopping to the last minute and to stock up on a few extra supplies to help not exhaust the local food-chain when people do start panic buying. [1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

Curzel 7y ago
Yes we were told by Conte, the Prime minister, around 21.30 (march 9th). Goes live at midnight
toyg 7y ago
> much more kept under-wraps than the previous quarantine of Northern Italy Without that irresponsible leak, and the irresponsible reaction of people trying to "escape", this total lockdown would probably not be necessary. People sometimes are right shits.
- bArray 7y ago
  > Without that irresponsible leak, and the irresponsible > reaction of people trying to "escape", this total lockdown > would probably not be necessary. The leak was far from ideal, but I still think Italy would be in the same situation. I suspect there were already an un-contained spread in the South before the lockdown in the North. > People sometimes are right shits. This is still true, but I am not so sure they can be completely blamed. When people are scared they act irrationally and this should be incorporated into any plan.
Nursie 7y ago
People in the UK have already been panic buying, mostly pasta and toilet roll AFAICT

maremmano 7y ago

What surprises me is the number of deaths in relation to the number of infections. Even higher than Iran where I would expect less effective patient management than in northern Italy. What is your opinion on this?

deleted 7y ago
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thalassos 7y ago
The average age in italy is much beyond 50 (60 million population) and we have 3000 ICU in total. Yes.
- T-A 7y ago
  In 2019, the average age of the Italian population was 45.4 years: https://www.statista.com/statistics/569187/average-age-of-the-population-in-italy-by-region/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/569187/average-age-of-th...
pbourke 7y ago
Iran's numbers are either undercounted or under reported.
anonuser123456 7y ago
30% of the population is over 60. Only 17% of the Chinese`population is over 60. We should expect to see a devastating impact on Italy with a much higher CFR. https://www.populationpyramid.net/italy/2020/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/italy/2020/
- adventured 7y ago
  And yet Germany (median age 48, nearly the oldest in the world, slightly older than Italy and similar to Japan) has seen only two deaths so far out of ~1,100 cases. I've yet to see a definitive explanation for the extreme difference between what we're seeing in Italy vs South Korea vs Germany when it comes to mortality rates. Italy has a developed-world, universal healthcare system. Perhaps the cases in Germany are not far enough in yet to produce a higher rate of death (seems unlikely, in many cases elsewhere older patients are dying rapidly). The only explanation that seems plausible that I've seen, is that their healthcare system (locally) was quickly overwhelmed and they're leaving the worst cases to die, unable to tend to them.

dang 7y ago

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22527796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22527796

H8crilA 7y ago

So this is awaiting all countries, in all likelihood? I mean what's the difference between Italy and Switzerland? Or Germany? Or the United States?

missosoup 7y ago
The united states is going to fare a lot worse. Their president is actively contradicting his own experts and essentially encouraging people to go on spreading the disease. It's going to be a clusterfuck.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  People in other countries put too much weight in what the president says, Trump or otherwise, because they don't fully understand that there is an entire system of government that can fully function with or without the president. I won't go so far as to say that the position of the president is a figurehead, but it's been more than a little advisory for several generations. I watch a lot of BBC, NHK, and DW, and see it all the time. I don't blame the foreign journalists. If you're an overseas news organization working in America, of course the president is going to be fully staffed. But few orgs go much beyond that. Because of this, the European view of how America works is very simplified.
  - pbourke 7y ago
    In this case the President has weaponized the virus as a political issue. A sizeable number of people in the country don't believe that it's a serious issue and won't until their local hospitals are literally overrun. Maybe even not then. I believe you are seriously underestimating the effect of chaff being thrown into the air over this issue on a number of fronts. It makes it much, much harder to have people follow public health advice or put pressure on lawmakers to pass the necessary appropriations that will be required to address the situation.
  - akiselev 7y ago
    > there is an entire system of government that can fully function with or without the president. Except when a major global catastrophe hits, like a pandemic, the response requires massive coordination across local, state, and federal levels. What he says now may not be so relevant but the president's lack of appoints to key executive branch positions within the CDC and the rest of the healthcare apparatus (including eliminating health related positions from the National Security Council, one of the most important multi-agency coordination bodies) has drastically hampered the COVID-19 response effort. People from other countries more often tend to underestimate the sheer scale and complexity created by a local-state-federal separation of powers weighed down by over two hundred years of judicial baggage and thousands of miles of geography. In a crisis like this, even figuring out who has legal jurisdiction and authority is complicated. Doing it without an effective executive body, whose job is to navigate and command that mess, is far more difficult.

lend000 7y ago

It seems like these actions taken by governments will ultimately be futile, so the question is: can a vaccine or effective antiviral be developed fast enough to be worth the ~2-4 months of "slow spread" that can be bought in exchange for the economic and social slowdowns a country will sustain by creating massive quarantines like this? While an authoritarian government may be better suited to positively addressing some very specific problems (such as a pandemic), I do not personally consider the benefits to be worth the costs of infringing on everyone's freedoms. A government built around liberty and individual rights simply cannot enforce a sufficiently useful quarantine here to contain something approximately as infectious as the flu. Even China, which has severely curbed the spread of the coronavirus at tremendous expense, is still dealing with an exponential decay of new cases, at best. At the current rate (and assuming no incoming infections from abroad), it could take China a full year to go 14 days with no new cases. And if they let up restrictions sooner than that, perhaps they will lose ground to the virus once more. It does not seem sustainable. Also note that most cases are not being tested and reported. Anecdotally, I have second degree connections who are mildly infected and being responsible (although still probably exposing some people who live near them), but see no point of getting tested because they don't need the hospital and it's just an extra trip out in public. Other seemingly sick people are out and about in the city in which I live, coughing without covering their mouths in busy areas, etc. Perhaps I am just noticing it more, but I suspect the official case numbers are still off by a factor of 10 or more, so considering roughly a million people are likely infected throughout the world, containment is a fantasy at this point.

caconym_ 7y ago
Assuming that survival grants some level of immunity, if you can flatten the curve of the epidemic, you can make a limited supply of hospital beds, supplies, and personnel go a lot further.
- lend000 7y ago
  This is a good point, and I think it is reasonable to start with the immunity assumption, since it is generally the case for respiratory viruses. Still, I wonder what the math looks like. It has indeed been shown that flu outbreaks in ideal conditions are more intense, but conversely, the flu seasons are shorter [0]. If medical attention makes a significant difference in patient outcome, then the longer virus season is presumably preferable. However, the significance of medical attention needs to somehow be weighed against the total number of people who end up being infected and the costs of shutting down pieces of the global economy for longer periods of time (not to mention limiting individual rights.) Consider that less vulnerable people may be more likely to become infected in their daily lives since they are more active and likely come into contact with more people. In this case, a faster outbreak with many mild cases may actually result in faster herd immunity, and therefore fewer total infections in vulnerable populations. Perhaps a partial quarantine of at-risk populations is the best solution. [0] https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/10/big-cities-have-longer-flu-seasons-while-small-cities-have-more-intense-ones/572161/ https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/10/big-cities-have-...

ouid 7y ago

Why can't this be upvoted?

moultano 7y ago

This is an account from one of the doctors in Italy. https://twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/1237142891077697538?s=19 https://twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/123714289107769753... Read the whole thing, but this passage in particular is just chilling. "5/ Patients above 65 or younger with comorbidities are not even assessed by ITU, I am not saying not tubed, I’m saying not assessed and no ITU staff attends when they arrest. Staff are working as much as they can but they are starting to get sick and are emotionally overwhelmed."

hnaccy 7y ago
Does that mean they're just triaging them and letting them die?
- techolic 7y ago
  It hurts me to say this, but that's what happened in Wuhan for the first few weeks.
  - Gatsky 7y ago
    Could you just clarify how you got this information? Did you witness it directly?
    - Nuzzerino 7y ago
      There was a video taken of one of the hospitals in Wuhan around that time, with what looked like at least 1000 people lined up and corpses in the hallways. Put two and two together.
- rorykoehler 7y ago
  That's exactly what it means. If you go in /r/europe there was an interview with a doctor posted confirming this https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ffs5ng/coronavirus_doctor_in_bergamo_its_like_a_war_we/ https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ffs5ng/coronavirus_...
- 7y ago

Medicalidiot 7y ago

All my medical colleagues kept saying this was bad. In the first cohorts of patients, 10-20% needed ICU level care. I have privy to the latest peer reviewed guidelines for medicine and had a double take when I read the initial complications: 19.6% Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). ARDS has a supportive type of treatment, which means that we give you all the basics for life and hope that you pull through. It's the last resort of care. It's only ~150 people, that statistics might be off. Then the cohort study came out that was looking at 44k patients. It lined up with the first cohort so close you could consider it a rounding error. Folks, get mentally ready to know someone that will die because of this. Luckily, almost everyone in this thread will be alive, but those that have diabetes, cancer, coronary artery disease, and the elderly are the ones who will have poor outcomes because of it. >http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9a9b-fea8db1a8f51 http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9... >https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32031570-clinical-characteristics-of-138-hospitalized-patients-with-2019-novel-coronavirus-infected-pneumonia-in-wuhan-china/?dopt=Abstract https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32031570-clinical-characteri... >https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31986264-clinical-features-of-patients-infected-with-2019-novel-coronavirus-in-wuhan-china/?dopt=Abstract https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31986264-clinical-features-o... >https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32007143-epidemiological-and-clinical-characteristics-of-99-cases-of-2019-novel-coronavirus-pneumonia-in-wuhan-china-a-descriptive-study/?dopt=Abstract https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32007143-epidemiological-and...

jashkenas 7y ago

The Italian Department of Civil Protection is now publishing detailed confirmed case statistics on GitHub. I just finished throwing together a little animated map of of how it's been spreading across provinces: https://observablehq.com/@jashkenas/italy-coronavirus-daily-cases-map-covid-19 https://observablehq.com/@jashkenas/italy-coronavirus-daily-...

tomerico 7y ago
Super interesting. For once it doesn’t look like a population density map.
- jashkenas 7y ago
  Thanks! It should keep updating every day, as new numbers are published.
- digikata 7y ago
  I suspect if you laid transportation networks and commerce centers over the data there would be some alignment.
emme 7y ago
Very nice, thank you! I reply with my humble contribution, based mainly on John Hopkins' data. I tried to understand if the effect of restrictions is already visible (I hope it will... since I live in Milan), thus I fitted an exponential on the data from the week before March 1 (when the initial mild restrictions started) and compared with the actual growth. https://www.kaggle.com/mattiamonga/covid19 https://www.kaggle.com/mattiamonga/covid19 The model is quite simplistic, but the decrease seems real. Let's hope a bigger one will happen in the next days.

peter303 7y ago

The US case growth and death growth curves are same as Italy ten days ago (Feb 28 & 29 respectively for March 9). I wonder if the US will take as drastic actions, or perhaps individual US states.

bekseju 7y ago

There is 'encouraging signs' in Korea's COVID-19 outbreak. I hope to Italy is also going to get through it. Here is KCDC's English daily reports about COVID-19. https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=0030 https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=00...

justlexi93 7y ago

The world is affected by Covid-19, most of the groceries have limited supplies it it seems like a lot of people did hoard for food.

duchenne 7y ago

Is anyone here aware of some research trying to quantify the death toll of such a large-scale quarantine? For instance, closing universities could result many years later in ill-trained doctors and then bad diagnostics. The economic downfalls could result in an increase of poverty and homelessness-related deaths and suicides.

llamataboot 7y ago
What? I do think that doctors in training will be able to go back to school in a few months. Have you missed the part about hospitals being on the edge of being overwhelmed already?
federicoterzi 7y ago
Italian student here! Now most universities offer remote lessons/exams over the internet (in my case with Microsoft Teams).
aaron695 7y ago
A human life is worth around $2 million in the West. Estimate the economic loss and you have a back of a napkin death toll. But no, people don't seem to be talking about it.

llamataboot 7y ago

The US really really /really/ needs to get out in front of this. We have the lowest per-capita testing rate in the world, there are likely already significant outbreaks in Seattle, Santa Clara co, NYC, and DC. Probably elsewhere. We are literally like 12 days behind and can see into our future. If this virus does indeed require such intense hospital resources (as in Wuhan and now Northern Italy) letting it spike is just madness. Must put into place heavy restrictions now. We don't need travel lockdowns, but public events, movie theatres, etc should be closed, and businesses should be highly urged to allow workers to WFH if nec and/or try furloughs with public money (ha! good luck...) In any case, just waiting until we see a spike in cases and then trying to get behind it seems like so much madness. Large sports events? Museums? sigh

forgotmyhnacc 7y ago
It's absolutely astounding that Disney Land and world are still open.
- dvcrn 7y ago
  Disney Land and Disney Sea here in Tokyo closed down. So did USJ in Osaka.
  - forgotmyhnacc 7y ago
    Was referring to the US as the parent commenter was focused on that.
newtoday 7y ago
SXSW, South by Southwest music festival was cancelled (sadly so, but good), amongst other events, but definitely not enough yet.
joe_the_user 7y ago
Well, The only thing that be called reasonable statistic is the number of deaths and that hasn't spiked - I hate to say - yet. It's possible hospitals are even missing those, it's a big country. And it's a dispersed country so things might not spread as quickly. But other, what you say. Stopping large public events and doing mass testing seems crucial. South Korea seems to have gotten a handle on their infection process at the moment things are out-of-hand in Italy. South Korea has done mass testing for a while.

presiozo 7y ago

This is how a global crisis begins. The virus is spread more than we know and it's getting further

anotheryou 7y ago

and i have to beg for home office here in germany...

a_imho 7y ago
Would denying remote work (if applicable) open up companies to lawsuits?

tome 7y ago

If anyone wants to help out they might like to consider joining this volunteer effort. There are people working on data analysis and visualisation, communications and messaging, and other efforts. https://www.endcoronavirus.org/ https://www.endcoronavirus.org/

lormayna 7y ago

I am living in Italy (not in the zones where the virus starts spreading) and I want to say that our healthcare system is still working even if it's struggling. The big problem is that the number of places for critical care is going to saturate; they are starting moving sick persons from Lombardia to other regions in order to reduce pressure on the critical care hospitals departments. The number of death is so high because they count person who had other illness (cancer, heart disease, etc) and because we have lot of elder persons (the probability of dying is higher for over 75). I just hope that other government in Europe will take it seriously, because it seems spreading fast over France, Germany, Spain and Netherlands.

BiteCode_dev 7y ago
> The number of death is so high because they count person who had other illness (cancer, heart disease, etc) and because we have lot of elder persons (the probability of dying is higher for over 75). I don't know how the count is made, but since the pressure will affect the care for the other patients as well, it makes sense to at least take them in consideration in the stats.
- lormayna 7y ago
  Yes, it make sense. The strange value is the one from Germany with more than 1000 cases and only 2 died. I suspect that the criteria for counting the death is not the same across different EU countries.
  - mister_hn 7y ago
    and information hiding (to preserve Economy or to avoid Panic) plays a role here

LeanderK 7y ago

Since the mortality for younger people seems to be quite low I wonder, given the serious circumstances, whether it would be useful to give some (maybe volunteers?) medical staff in endangered regions "controlled" exposures to corona-virus so that the hospitals don't have a staffing problem due to sick doctors/nurses if a serious outbreak happens.

mlang23 7y ago

The voting system on HN is being used to punish those that try to stay calm and put things into perspective. Frankly, this actually surprises me. Either I always have had a distored view of the hacker culture, or some large scale manipulation is going on. Since I am not inclined to believe in conspiracy theories, I guess I was always wrong about the hacker culture and its people. And now, let the donwvotes come. I am pretty done with this site anyway. BTW, why doesn't HN allow me to delete my account? This seems worse then FaceBook. Even Twitter lets you delete your account and your posts. I smell bigotry, and that is why I want to run away.

mk89 7y ago

I hope other countries follow the same example. China gave a great demonstration that it's unfortunately the only way to stop such a thing from spreading. People just don't give a f*. Here the cases country by country: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ It's interesting to see that the growth is almost everywhere the same. In some countries it just started earlier. It took just 1 week (or 5 days min) to have cases from less than 100 to roughly 1000. Same in Italy, same in S. Korea, same in Germany, etc.

vishnuharidas 7y ago

Three people travelled from Venice, Italy to Kerala on Feb 29th and skipped the tests at the airport. Today Kerala has confirmed 12 cases of COVID-19 and around 3000 people are under observation.

Yetanfou 7y ago

This is supposed to be a trasnscription of some Whatsapp calls between medical personnel in the north and south of Italy where the northerners try to update the southerners on the situation https://files.catbox.moe/3ns6c1.mp4 https://files.catbox.moe/3ns6c1.mp4 This file is several weeks old by now, a search on the 'net finds a number of pages where the link is mentioned (including one from the 21st of januari 2020 - according to Google that is - hoax alert? if so a prescient hoax in that they knew it would start in the north of Italy). This being the internet it it hard to ascertain the veracity of the thing. If it is for real it sounds way worse than e.g. the situation on the cruise ship 'Diamond Princess' which saw 700+ infections but only a few deaths as far as I know, nor does it tally with the situation in Korea. In the (supposed) transcription they talk about a larger number of cases in younger people without existing medical conditions, again something which goes counter the current narrative. One of the possible explanations given for the higher mortality in Italy (~4%) compared to Korea (~0.7%) is that Italy has a generally older population (the oldest in Europe) but that does not explain the mentioned incidence of cases among younger people. Of course the way countries count 'cases' can also differ so there is another possible explanation but this still does not explain those cases among younger people.

jfkebwjsbx 7y ago
Facepalm. Are you really still claiming this is not real?
- Yetanfou 7y ago
  No, I am claiming that this specific sound file might not be real given that there are references to it from the 21st of january (i.e. way before it hit Italy) and given the stated incidence of cases in younger people while the narrative is that the disease is mostly mild in those under 50. There is no doubt that there is a pandemic going on, I can see it happen around me here in Sweden.
  - jfkebwjsbx 7y ago
    My apologies then.

swordsmith 7y ago

Would make more sense for the elderly and vulnerable, and those that work/live in close proximity with those to be self-quarantined. Makes little sense to apply those measures to the young and healthy, for whom the effects (both symptoms and mortality rate) are similar to contracting flu without vaccine.