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>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
by 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 agoThis makes sense. Now that Italy has ramped up testing to 13k per day we should see a correction in due course.
- dr_dshiv 7y agoSo if we assume a similar death rate, we could use the deaths to estimate how many are actually infected in Italy?
- zimmerfrei 7y agoYes, 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 agoNice - or as satisfying as something can be under the horrible circumstances - this is exactly what I've been arguing here.
- makomk 7y agoYup. Meanwhile, the New York Times has run an article about how northern Italy is "a warning to the world" with the eye-catching claim that "about 50 percent of the people who tested positive for the virus required some form of hospitalization": https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/world/europe/12italy-coronavirus-health-care.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/world/europe/12italy-coro... Between this and other reporting, I'm starting to wish they hadn't opened up their paywall for coronavirus articles.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]