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A large number of South Korea infections are even younger due to how it spread. Another possibility is that Italy doesn't have a handle on who is or isn't infe

A large number of South Korea infections are even younger due to how it spread. Another possibility is that Italy doesn't have a handle on who is or isn't infected so what they report are the obvious infections, who tend to be older.

gattilorenz 7y ago
In many (technically former) "red zones", especially in Lombardy, they tested also asyntomatic family members of infected people, or their contacts. I'm not sure how inaccurate it is, but I have no idea what has been done in SK.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  South Korea traces the movement of everyone who tests positive, puts the movements online and tests those who were exposed to someone positive (this is in the article I believe). It's a massive effort but with the world economy at a stand-still, what else do people have to do? North Italy has a population of 27 people btw so the 10K that are registered as positive as a drop in the bucket.
  - imtringued 7y ago
    I guess I'm lucky enough to know one of these 27 people.
    - joe_the_user 7y ago
      Fine, 27M(million) "Why must I always explain" Bob Dylan
gpderetta 7y ago
It is possible you are right. IIRC, 17% of those tested were positive in Italy. That's a very high percentage. Very likely the actual infected number is much higher.
- eisa01 7y ago
  Yup, you probably only have to look at the counts of infected tourists coming back. In Norway that is 89 from Italy, and 112 from Austria (25% of the total infected as of writing...)
  - pmontra 7y ago
    Is Norway testing everybody coming back into the country?
    - tallanvor 7y ago
      No. In fact they just revised their testing criteria and will not test most people who are asked to quarantine at home. Testing is expected for people who have acute respiratory illness, people who are hospitalized, health care workers handling these cases, and immune-compromised people with mild symptoms.
  - tremon 7y ago
    True, same here, in The Netherlands. Of the first 500 reported cases, around 25% were tourists returning from the Alps region (northern Italy, western Austria), and around 50% were traced to secondary infections from those first 25%. The other 25% were unexplained, hence we're now in the endemic spread phase. FAFAIK, we've never had a policy to pre-emptively test every returning tourist, and even now we don't test everybody. The current policy is to test new cases only if they have no relation to an already-established case. For example, people living in the same house as a known Corona case will not get tested. If they start showing symptoms, they're automatically assumed to have contracted it.
ddeck 7y ago
>Another possibility is that Italy doesn't have a handle on who is or isn't infected so what they report are the obvious infections, who tend to be older. This is very likely the case, as can be seen in the positive test outcome rates. 16.7% in Italy vs. 3.6% in South Korea Italy has run around 60k tests. South Korea are testing around 15k people/day and have tested 234k people in total. They've even setup drive-through testing centers where anyone can drive through, get tested, and get results via SMS in under a day. The result of this is likely a much larger number of asymptomatic or mild cases in the South Korean numbers, which based on the China data, tend to be a lot younger. https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=&bid=0030 https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=&bid=0030 https://github.com/pcm-dpc/COVID-19/blob/master/schede-riepilogative/regioni/dpc-covid19-ita-scheda-regioni-20200310.pdf https://github.com/pcm-dpc/COVID-19/blob/master/schede-riepi...
- toyg 7y ago
  This makes sense. Now that Italy has ramped up testing to 13k per day we should see a correction in due course.
- dr_dshiv 7y ago
  So if we assume a similar death rate, we could use the deaths to estimate how many are actually infected in Italy?
  - zimmerfrei 7y ago
    Yes, not only in Italy, but in most other places. This article explains well how deaths (or hospitalizations) are correlated to actual infections (most of which go unnoticed), and also why reduction of social interaction is effective but its effects take a while to show: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop...
    - joe_the_user 7y ago
      Nice - or as satisfying as something can be under the horrible circumstances - this is exactly what I've been arguing here.
Retric 7y ago
It’s unlikely that 14,000 infected 20-29 year olds where missed as a significant fraction end up in the ICU. Which means even if the ratio is off, the breakdowns are still significantly different.

gattilorenz 7y ago

In many (technically former) "red zones", especially in Lombardy, they tested also asyntomatic family members of infected people, or their contacts. I'm not sure how inaccurate it is, but I have no idea what has been done in SK.

joe_the_user 7y ago
South Korea traces the movement of everyone who tests positive, puts the movements online and tests those who were exposed to someone positive (this is in the article I believe). It's a massive effort but with the world economy at a stand-still, what else do people have to do? North Italy has a population of 27 people btw so the 10K that are registered as positive as a drop in the bucket.
- imtringued 7y ago
  I guess I'm lucky enough to know one of these 27 people.
  - joe_the_user 7y ago
    Fine, 27M(million) "Why must I always explain" Bob Dylan

gpderetta 7y ago

It is possible you are right. IIRC, 17% of those tested were positive in Italy. That's a very high percentage. Very likely the actual infected number is much higher.

eisa01 7y ago
Yup, you probably only have to look at the counts of infected tourists coming back. In Norway that is 89 from Italy, and 112 from Austria (25% of the total infected as of writing...)
- pmontra 7y ago
  Is Norway testing everybody coming back into the country?
  - tallanvor 7y ago
    No. In fact they just revised their testing criteria and will not test most people who are asked to quarantine at home. Testing is expected for people who have acute respiratory illness, people who are hospitalized, health care workers handling these cases, and immune-compromised people with mild symptoms.
- tremon 7y ago
  True, same here, in The Netherlands. Of the first 500 reported cases, around 25% were tourists returning from the Alps region (northern Italy, western Austria), and around 50% were traced to secondary infections from those first 25%. The other 25% were unexplained, hence we're now in the endemic spread phase. FAFAIK, we've never had a policy to pre-emptively test every returning tourist, and even now we don't test everybody. The current policy is to test new cases only if they have no relation to an already-established case. For example, people living in the same house as a known Corona case will not get tested. If they start showing symptoms, they're automatically assumed to have contracted it.

ddeck 7y ago

>Another possibility is that Italy doesn't have a handle on who is or isn't infected so what they report are the obvious infections, who tend to be older. This is very likely the case, as can be seen in the positive test outcome rates. 16.7% in Italy vs. 3.6% in South Korea Italy has run around 60k tests. South Korea are testing around 15k people/day and have tested 234k people in total. They've even setup drive-through testing centers where anyone can drive through, get tested, and get results via SMS in under a day. The result of this is likely a much larger number of asymptomatic or mild cases in the South Korean numbers, which based on the China data, tend to be a lot younger. https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=&bid=0030 https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=&bid=0030 https://github.com/pcm-dpc/COVID-19/blob/master/schede-riepilogative/regioni/dpc-covid19-ita-scheda-regioni-20200310.pdf https://github.com/pcm-dpc/COVID-19/blob/master/schede-riepi...

toyg 7y ago
This makes sense. Now that Italy has ramped up testing to 13k per day we should see a correction in due course.
dr_dshiv 7y ago
So if we assume a similar death rate, we could use the deaths to estimate how many are actually infected in Italy?
- zimmerfrei 7y ago
  Yes, not only in Italy, but in most other places. This article explains well how deaths (or hospitalizations) are correlated to actual infections (most of which go unnoticed), and also why reduction of social interaction is effective but its effects take a while to show: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop...
  - joe_the_user 7y ago
    Nice - or as satisfying as something can be under the horrible circumstances - this is exactly what I've been arguing here.

Retric 7y ago

It’s unlikely that 14,000 infected 20-29 year olds where missed as a significant fraction end up in the ICU. Which means even if the ratio is off, the breakdowns are still significantly different.