3 ms·

My question is, why all the numbers look so different in Italy and South Korea? The countries are roughly the same size. They both have modern, socialized medic

My question is, why all the numbers look so different in Italy and South Korea? The countries are roughly the same size. They both have modern, socialized medical systems AFAIK. But the stats are completely different. We're not talking about percentages. We're talking about order of magnitude difference in everything, including relative stats. Is this difference due to some property of population (e.g. average age, smoking rates) or the response?

yulaow 7y ago
Could be an age problem, in Italy atm the median age of the death patients is 80yo. [ https://tg24.sky.it/salute-e-benessere/2020/03/16/morti-coronavirus-italia.html https://tg24.sky.it/salute-e-benessere/2020/03/16/morti-coro... ]
julosflb 7y ago
They managed to quickly break the exponential evolution probably with a very rapid and strong response. Could be that Latin people are less disciplined when it comes to adhere to restrictions. See https://twitter.com/PrieurJulien/status/1239227017549283330?s=20 https://twitter.com/PrieurJulien/status/1239227017549283330?...
bugzz 7y ago
I've also been thinking about this. From what I can tell, a big part of it is the most of South Korea's cases so far were skewed young and female (both demographics less likely to die). Stats for ages in SK cases here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic_data/South_Korea_medical_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:2019%E2%80%9320_coron... Additionally, it seems SK has picked up cases much earlier in their progression than Italy (and most other countries except perhaps Singapore). This means we'll likely see more deaths as those cases resolve (and deaths/cases in SK has been increasing, was 0.6% a week ago, now 0.9%). Another factor is it seems SK picked up a majority of their cases, mild and serious, due to extensive testing, while Italy has likely not detected many mild cases. Finally, death rates are much higher in places where health systems are overwhelmed, such as northern Italy.
chippy 7y ago
Difference in sampling basically as they test people who are sick in Italy versus allow anyone to test in SK. You should estimate the levels based on the sampling. For example last week the UK Govt said they estimate there was 10,000 infected in the UK based (in part) the number of positive people in the hundreds. You should be able to make better predictions using geo-demographics and population density etc. For south korea, do we know the number of people who are in hospital with the virus being treated? Then you can compare Italy and South Korea.
33degrees 7y ago
South Korea has been doing extensive testing, not just of people presenting symptoms but also tracking their movements to find those they've been in contact with. https://www.france24.com/en/20200311-coronavirus-can-s-korea-be-a-model-for-virus-hit-countries https://www.france24.com/en/20200311-coronavirus-can-s-korea...

yulaow 7y ago

Could be an age problem, in Italy atm the median age of the death patients is 80yo. [ https://tg24.sky.it/salute-e-benessere/2020/03/16/morti-coronavirus-italia.html https://tg24.sky.it/salute-e-benessere/2020/03/16/morti-coro... ]

julosflb 7y ago

They managed to quickly break the exponential evolution probably with a very rapid and strong response. Could be that Latin people are less disciplined when it comes to adhere to restrictions. See https://twitter.com/PrieurJulien/status/1239227017549283330?s=20 https://twitter.com/PrieurJulien/status/1239227017549283330?...

bugzz 7y ago

I've also been thinking about this. From what I can tell, a big part of it is the most of South Korea's cases so far were skewed young and female (both demographics less likely to die). Stats for ages in SK cases here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic_data/South_Korea_medical_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:2019%E2%80%9320_coron... Additionally, it seems SK has picked up cases much earlier in their progression than Italy (and most other countries except perhaps Singapore). This means we'll likely see more deaths as those cases resolve (and deaths/cases in SK has been increasing, was 0.6% a week ago, now 0.9%). Another factor is it seems SK picked up a majority of their cases, mild and serious, due to extensive testing, while Italy has likely not detected many mild cases. Finally, death rates are much higher in places where health systems are overwhelmed, such as northern Italy.

chippy 7y ago

Difference in sampling basically as they test people who are sick in Italy versus allow anyone to test in SK. You should estimate the levels based on the sampling. For example last week the UK Govt said they estimate there was 10,000 infected in the UK based (in part) the number of positive people in the hundreds. You should be able to make better predictions using geo-demographics and population density etc. For south korea, do we know the number of people who are in hospital with the virus being treated? Then you can compare Italy and South Korea.

33degrees 7y ago

South Korea has been doing extensive testing, not just of people presenting symptoms but also tracking their movements to find those they've been in contact with. https://www.france24.com/en/20200311-coronavirus-can-s-korea-be-a-model-for-virus-hit-countries https://www.france24.com/en/20200311-coronavirus-can-s-korea...