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Because China is a good month ahead of the rest of the world, and is much denser populated in the cities (which are also much larger than ours). The initial co

Because China is a good month ahead of the rest of the world, and is much denser populated in the cities (which are also much larger than ours). The initial cover up didn't help either. Once they instated the lockdown, they could test the backlog of people. That took quitea while. But now the spread has pretty much stopped, while everywhere else on this planet it increases day by day. After the initial cover-up got public, the West couldn't get enough of reporting about it, and how this is the reason it could spread so fast, how irresponsible it was, and how it's typical for evil China. Now we have that virus here, plus two month of knowledge about it, and we're still mostly being reactive instead of proactive. In China's defense, when they tried to cover it up, much less was known about the disease, like it's asymptomatic spread. Now the cards are on the table and we're being ignorant, as if ignoring a problem makes it go away. But hey, when things are getting really really ugly for us, we can still go back to blaming China for their initial cover-up. Watch Italy closely the next days, and compare it to China when they were at a similar stage. It will tell you what's to come in your country too. Another thing that's suspicious about Italy is the high CFR of around 6%. It most likely means they're not doing enough testing, only the severe cases, so the rest wanders around the country happily spreading it further.

joe_the_user 7y ago
Absolutely this summarizes the situation. It's worth noting that South Korea also was able to engage in such mass mobilization. Moreover, if the trends continue for a few weeks, China's not going to have an order of magnitude more death anymore. Italy's high CFR sounds like a health care that's broken far more than the Chinese health care system, a system which essentially isn't taking any specific extreme measures (which would be building more hospitals, importing more health care workers, etc).
- selectodude 7y ago
  Italy also has a demographic curve skewed heavily older than most other nations. Italy is the 2nd oldest country on earth after Japan.
  - dmix 7y ago
    And 89% of Italy's fatal cases are people >70yrs old.
    - dugditches 7y ago
      Because they're still treating them in some regard(before being overwhelmed). However once things get even more overwhelmed, you have bad cases become critical leading to more fatalities. The going figure seems to 20% are badly impacted, with 5% of that critical. Some of that 15% will become critical without treatment that might not be available. Thus impacting people <70.
    - shadowprofile77 7y ago
      If you don't mind, Where did you find this information? I've been searching for a breakdown of all fatalities so far by age group (raw numbers, not just average percentages) and could not find it.
      - jurassic 7y ago
        It was covered in the WSJ earlier this week: https://www.wsj.com/articles/italy-with-elderly-population-has-worlds-highest-death-rate-from-virus-11583785086 https://www.wsj.com/articles/italy-with-elderly-population-h...
        shadowprofile77 7y ago
        Thank you to all three of you for these.
      - NortySpock 7y ago
        https://www.flattenthecurve.com/#This_is_Not_Normal_Flu_-_Not_Even_in_the_Best_Case https://www.flattenthecurve.com/#This_is_Not_Normal_Flu_-_No... Percentage graph at the link from Chinese CDC, though Korea CDC has raw numbers it looks like. https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=0030 https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=00...
- twsted 7y ago
  I don’t know how they compare, but consider that in the north of Italy there is one of the most advanced health care system in the world.
  - jupp0r 7y ago
    I'm not sure "advanced" is what's needed for healthcare systems to cope with this. It's relatively low-tech care scaled up quickly. My fear is that the amount of institutional inertia, and where in time the inflection point of overcoming that inertia lies will determine outcomes.
MockObject 7y ago
"CFR" = case-fatality rate.
baq 7y ago
Fully agree except that Italy’s CFR is most likely caused by its large proportion of elderly people. Compare to South Korea where the majority of infected are young and thus CFR is sub 1%.
- cmurf 7y ago
  Japan has an even more elderly population than Italy, yet a lower CFR than South Korea. Is Japan testing enough? Are they somehow self-isolating way better than anyone else?
  - acoderhasnoname 7y ago
    Japan didn't really test much. Lots of elderly die alone even without virus, people used to it.
  - tooltalk 7y ago
    Japan isn't really doing much and many suspect that they are deliberately looking away from the coronavirus outbreak because of the 2020 Olympics later this year. IMO, the gov't willful neglect and concealment is exactly what enabled the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China and I fear this might come back to bite them later.
- scarmig 7y ago
  The difference in age demographics isn't nearly enough to account for the differences in outcomes, unless you believe the proportion of people in Italy >70 years old is 5-10x that of South Korea. (Spoiler alert: it's not). The issue has to do with preparedness and healthcare capacity. South Korea has 3x the number of hospital beds per capita than Italy.
kaiabwpdjqn 7y ago
CFR in Italy is lower in every age category than in China. It’s Simpson’s paradox
unishark 7y ago
> After the initial cover-up got public, the West couldn't get enough of reporting about it, and how this is the reason it could spread so fast, how irresponsible it was, and how it's typical for evil China. Now we have that virus here, plus two month of knowledge about it, and we're still mostly being reactive instead of proactive. In China's defense, when they tried to cover it up, much less was known about the disease, like it's asymptomatic spread. Now the cards are on the table and we're being ignorant, as if ignoring a problem makes it go away. But hey, when things are getting really really ugly for us, we can still go back to blaming China for their initial cover-up. I think you're combining two largely-unrelated factors. The news in any country is only going to be interested in the most salacious stories in countries 12 time zones away. This is just how the market operates. A tiny percentage of china dying from a new kind of flu is not as headline-grabbing as people dying due to govt misbehavior. Meanwhile our govt isn't blind, they have people and plans in place for everything and they think they are ready and in control. Then, it turns out it's a clusterfuck anyway that takes way longer than expected to implement. They need to have dealt with the exact same disaster in recent years to get it right. It's a problem with implementing a large-scale system you can't test until it's needed.
- iforgotpassword 7y ago
  Having plans in place is great, but we're already running out of masks, gloves etc. here in Germany and it's only about to start. We didn't even try to stock up on this, since "lol China flu, won't concern us". Germany actually just intercepted a shipment of gloves from China to Switzerland and kept them. That's how desperate they are over here. But in fact I doubt there really is a plan in place at all. It seems most countries ignored this, hoping they'll be spared of this, then stumbled along with adhoc measures, and only now slowly start to listen to experts. Saying there is nothing we could have done better from just looking at what unfolds in China is very questionable. > The news in any country is only going to be interested in the most salacious stories in countries 12 time zones away. This is just how the market operates. ... for about a month, and still bringing it up to this date. Compare [1] to [2]. Notice anything? Western, especially US media is becoming more and more of an echo chamber trying to strengthen that simplistic world view that we are the good guys and they are the bad guys. But it's not overly surprising really, considering the financial struggles of traditional media over the last decade. As you said, the focus shifts more and more towards stories and headlines that sell, even for once renowned outlets like the NYTimes. [1] https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1236484352965521408 https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1236484352965521408 [2] https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1236479276586807296 https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1236479276586807296

joe_the_user 7y ago

Absolutely this summarizes the situation. It's worth noting that South Korea also was able to engage in such mass mobilization. Moreover, if the trends continue for a few weeks, China's not going to have an order of magnitude more death anymore. Italy's high CFR sounds like a health care that's broken far more than the Chinese health care system, a system which essentially isn't taking any specific extreme measures (which would be building more hospitals, importing more health care workers, etc).

selectodude 7y ago
Italy also has a demographic curve skewed heavily older than most other nations. Italy is the 2nd oldest country on earth after Japan.
- dmix 7y ago
  And 89% of Italy's fatal cases are people >70yrs old.
  - dugditches 7y ago
    Because they're still treating them in some regard(before being overwhelmed). However once things get even more overwhelmed, you have bad cases become critical leading to more fatalities. The going figure seems to 20% are badly impacted, with 5% of that critical. Some of that 15% will become critical without treatment that might not be available. Thus impacting people <70.
  - shadowprofile77 7y ago
    If you don't mind, Where did you find this information? I've been searching for a breakdown of all fatalities so far by age group (raw numbers, not just average percentages) and could not find it.
    - jurassic 7y ago
      It was covered in the WSJ earlier this week: https://www.wsj.com/articles/italy-with-elderly-population-has-worlds-highest-death-rate-from-virus-11583785086 https://www.wsj.com/articles/italy-with-elderly-population-h...
      - shadowprofile77 7y ago
        Thank you to all three of you for these.
    - NortySpock 7y ago
      https://www.flattenthecurve.com/#This_is_Not_Normal_Flu_-_Not_Even_in_the_Best_Case https://www.flattenthecurve.com/#This_is_Not_Normal_Flu_-_No... Percentage graph at the link from Chinese CDC, though Korea CDC has raw numbers it looks like. https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=0030 https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=00...
twsted 7y ago
I don’t know how they compare, but consider that in the north of Italy there is one of the most advanced health care system in the world.
- jupp0r 7y ago
  I'm not sure "advanced" is what's needed for healthcare systems to cope with this. It's relatively low-tech care scaled up quickly. My fear is that the amount of institutional inertia, and where in time the inflection point of overcoming that inertia lies will determine outcomes.

MockObject 7y ago

"CFR" = case-fatality rate.

baq 7y ago

Fully agree except that Italy’s CFR is most likely caused by its large proportion of elderly people. Compare to South Korea where the majority of infected are young and thus CFR is sub 1%.

cmurf 7y ago
Japan has an even more elderly population than Italy, yet a lower CFR than South Korea. Is Japan testing enough? Are they somehow self-isolating way better than anyone else?
- acoderhasnoname 7y ago
  Japan didn't really test much. Lots of elderly die alone even without virus, people used to it.
- tooltalk 7y ago
  Japan isn't really doing much and many suspect that they are deliberately looking away from the coronavirus outbreak because of the 2020 Olympics later this year. IMO, the gov't willful neglect and concealment is exactly what enabled the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China and I fear this might come back to bite them later.
scarmig 7y ago
The difference in age demographics isn't nearly enough to account for the differences in outcomes, unless you believe the proportion of people in Italy >70 years old is 5-10x that of South Korea. (Spoiler alert: it's not). The issue has to do with preparedness and healthcare capacity. South Korea has 3x the number of hospital beds per capita than Italy.

kaiabwpdjqn 7y ago

CFR in Italy is lower in every age category than in China. It’s Simpson’s paradox

unishark 7y ago

> After the initial cover-up got public, the West couldn't get enough of reporting about it, and how this is the reason it could spread so fast, how irresponsible it was, and how it's typical for evil China. Now we have that virus here, plus two month of knowledge about it, and we're still mostly being reactive instead of proactive. In China's defense, when they tried to cover it up, much less was known about the disease, like it's asymptomatic spread. Now the cards are on the table and we're being ignorant, as if ignoring a problem makes it go away. But hey, when things are getting really really ugly for us, we can still go back to blaming China for their initial cover-up. I think you're combining two largely-unrelated factors. The news in any country is only going to be interested in the most salacious stories in countries 12 time zones away. This is just how the market operates. A tiny percentage of china dying from a new kind of flu is not as headline-grabbing as people dying due to govt misbehavior. Meanwhile our govt isn't blind, they have people and plans in place for everything and they think they are ready and in control. Then, it turns out it's a clusterfuck anyway that takes way longer than expected to implement. They need to have dealt with the exact same disaster in recent years to get it right. It's a problem with implementing a large-scale system you can't test until it's needed.

iforgotpassword 7y ago
Having plans in place is great, but we're already running out of masks, gloves etc. here in Germany and it's only about to start. We didn't even try to stock up on this, since "lol China flu, won't concern us". Germany actually just intercepted a shipment of gloves from China to Switzerland and kept them. That's how desperate they are over here. But in fact I doubt there really is a plan in place at all. It seems most countries ignored this, hoping they'll be spared of this, then stumbled along with adhoc measures, and only now slowly start to listen to experts. Saying there is nothing we could have done better from just looking at what unfolds in China is very questionable. > The news in any country is only going to be interested in the most salacious stories in countries 12 time zones away. This is just how the market operates. ... for about a month, and still bringing it up to this date. Compare [1] to [2]. Notice anything? Western, especially US media is becoming more and more of an echo chamber trying to strengthen that simplistic world view that we are the good guys and they are the bad guys. But it's not overly surprising really, considering the financial struggles of traditional media over the last decade. As you said, the focus shifts more and more towards stories and headlines that sell, even for once renowned outlets like the NYTimes. [1] https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1236484352965521408 https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1236484352965521408 [2] https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1236479276586807296 https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1236479276586807296