4 ms·

I'm also thinking of the "biological resistance" angle. Japan is known to have extremely low rates of common comorbidity factors: cardiovascular conditions, ob

by K0SM0S 7y ago

I'm also thinking of the "biological resistance" angle. Japan is known to have extremely low rates of common comorbidity factors: cardiovascular conditions, obesity, etc. By very significant margins, consider dividing the prevalence of these conditions by 2 to 10 compared to the West. Add to that a generally balanced nutrition, due to a culinary culture quite aligned with those goals (whether by chance or by design, that's another question...) Hypothesis: added to the factors you mentioned, you end up with a population 'much less likely' to develop complications with COVID-19 (also possibly immune quicker on average after infection, thus lower R₀). So they get it but instead of 20% requiring hospitalization, maybe only 1-5% do, and that's somehow manageable and results in much lower numbers since they only test critical cases. We'll only see in the postmortems of all these patients, but I'm willing to bet right now that most cases requiring ICU treatment had some sort of underlying condition that favored the virus progress; age being one such condition (as defined by De Grey, essentially tear and wear of the machine conceptually). I don't know, but there's definitely something with Japan and COVID-19, and the slow progression of infections (despite the lack of strict confinement measures or systematic testing) is already fact compared to any other country I'm aware of. It's not just luck.

lazyier 7y ago
Probably more likely they are just ignoring it. In 2018 influenza killed around 61,000 people (46000-95000 95%UI) in the USA. Estimated 45,000,000 people got sick. 21,000,000 people made hospital visits with around 810,000 people hospitalized. So it didn't fling the USA into a recession. Business continued as normal. For Italy you had 7,027 deaths for the '13-'14 flu season, 20,259 '14-'15, 15,801 '15-'16, and 24,981 '16-'17. So why does ~25,000 deaths one year goes practically unnoticed, yet less then 5,000 deaths send the economy into a death spiral and the government to essentially strip all rights from the population? It's not like if people just continued with business as usual the death toll would be unusually high. I fully understand why you want to slow the spread of the disease... but if ultimately if 70-90 thousand people die in the USA and 30-40 thousand people die in Italy.. it wouldn't even be that unusual or extreme. It would just be a slightly higher then average people die from just run of the mill every year seasonal disease. It's the same reason why although terrorism killed 25 people in the USA in 2019 and was all over the news and people freaked out, and caused panic attacks, and calls for legislation and.. so on and so forth. Yet bee/hornet attacks killed around 60-90 people in the same time period and nobody, except close family members and friends of the victims, gave two shits. It's the novelty, strangeness, and uncertainty that causes a massive reaction. And it is the response that is causing damage to the economies, society, and destroying people's lives. Not the disease. Not yet. Maybe it will, but that is far from certain. In other words... The reason it's not a big deal in Japan has nothing to do with how many people get sick or die or inherent vulnerability to the sickness. The median age of a person in the USA is 38. The Median age of a person in Japan is 46. This is a massively older population and there is a limit to how much a healthy lifestyle really makes in fighting disease. The real reason it's not a big deal in Japan is because they choose to not make it a big deal.
- adventured 7y ago
  > So why does ~25,000 deaths one year goes practically unnoticed, yet less then 5,000 deaths send the economy into a death spiral and the government to essentially strip all rights from the population? Because Covid is not comparable to the 2018 influenza in terms of how many ICU cases it produces and how quickly. The common flu is also far less infectious. That combination is the problem. The 2013-2014 flu season in Italy didn't collapse their healthcare system with intensive care patients. 10-15% of the people testing positive for Covid are ending up requiring intensive care. If four million people with flu in the US in 2018 were put into intensive care (much less just during the span of the flu season), it would have collapsed the US healthcare system rapidly. It would take less than a month of that onslaught to collapse the US healthcare system entirely. The majority of US ICU beds are routinely being used (meaning there would have been very little spare capacity at all for the four million flu ICU patients). In that scenario, with four million ICU patients from the 2018 influenza, you're going to see several million deaths.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > So why does ~25,000 deaths one year goes practically unnoticed, yet less then 5,000 deaths send the economy into a death spiral and the government to essentially strip all rights from the population? Because one is an annual total, and one is a subannual total of a number that is increasing exponentially, so they aren't comparable.
- sharken 7y ago
  I could not agree more with this. Do keep in mind that Italy has had 5000 deaths in a rather short timespan, while the 25,000 deaths in 16-17 was over a much longer timespan. I fear the economic repercussions will be grossly underestimated, when we could have done like Japan. At least the environment will benefit from all the lockdowns around the world.
- wolco 7y ago
  At a 4.3% death rate if the same number were infected you would be looking at 2 million in the US.
  - 7y ago

by K0SM0S 7y ago

lazyier 7y ago

Probably more likely they are just ignoring it. In 2018 influenza killed around 61,000 people (46000-95000 95%UI) in the USA. Estimated 45,000,000 people got sick. 21,000,000 people made hospital visits with around 810,000 people hospitalized. So it didn't fling the USA into a recession. Business continued as normal. For Italy you had 7,027 deaths for the '13-'14 flu season, 20,259 '14-'15, 15,801 '15-'16, and 24,981 '16-'17. So why does ~25,000 deaths one year goes practically unnoticed, yet less then 5,000 deaths send the economy into a death spiral and the government to essentially strip all rights from the population? It's not like if people just continued with business as usual the death toll would be unusually high. I fully understand why you want to slow the spread of the disease... but if ultimately if 70-90 thousand people die in the USA and 30-40 thousand people die in Italy.. it wouldn't even be that unusual or extreme. It would just be a slightly higher then average people die from just run of the mill every year seasonal disease. It's the same reason why although terrorism killed 25 people in the USA in 2019 and was all over the news and people freaked out, and caused panic attacks, and calls for legislation and.. so on and so forth. Yet bee/hornet attacks killed around 60-90 people in the same time period and nobody, except close family members and friends of the victims, gave two shits. It's the novelty, strangeness, and uncertainty that causes a massive reaction. And it is the response that is causing damage to the economies, society, and destroying people's lives. Not the disease. Not yet. Maybe it will, but that is far from certain. In other words... The reason it's not a big deal in Japan has nothing to do with how many people get sick or die or inherent vulnerability to the sickness. The median age of a person in the USA is 38. The Median age of a person in Japan is 46. This is a massively older population and there is a limit to how much a healthy lifestyle really makes in fighting disease. The real reason it's not a big deal in Japan is because they choose to not make it a big deal.

adventured 7y ago
> So why does ~25,000 deaths one year goes practically unnoticed, yet less then 5,000 deaths send the economy into a death spiral and the government to essentially strip all rights from the population? Because Covid is not comparable to the 2018 influenza in terms of how many ICU cases it produces and how quickly. The common flu is also far less infectious. That combination is the problem. The 2013-2014 flu season in Italy didn't collapse their healthcare system with intensive care patients. 10-15% of the people testing positive for Covid are ending up requiring intensive care. If four million people with flu in the US in 2018 were put into intensive care (much less just during the span of the flu season), it would have collapsed the US healthcare system rapidly. It would take less than a month of that onslaught to collapse the US healthcare system entirely. The majority of US ICU beds are routinely being used (meaning there would have been very little spare capacity at all for the four million flu ICU patients). In that scenario, with four million ICU patients from the 2018 influenza, you're going to see several million deaths.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> So why does ~25,000 deaths one year goes practically unnoticed, yet less then 5,000 deaths send the economy into a death spiral and the government to essentially strip all rights from the population? Because one is an annual total, and one is a subannual total of a number that is increasing exponentially, so they aren't comparable.
sharken 7y ago
I could not agree more with this. Do keep in mind that Italy has had 5000 deaths in a rather short timespan, while the 25,000 deaths in 16-17 was over a much longer timespan. I fear the economic repercussions will be grossly underestimated, when we could have done like Japan. At least the environment will benefit from all the lockdowns around the world.
wolco 7y ago
At a 4.3% death rate if the same number were infected you would be looking at 2 million in the US.
- 7y ago