Italy - tragedy of epic proportions unfolding. Should be on total lockdown. 49 deaths today like would be 1130 in China cause 23 times less population

[0R0 + 6,251]

2 hours ago, Guillaume Albasini said:

“Two or three weeks ago, we were still hoping for containment,” says Tara Smith, an epidemiologist at Kent State University. “We’re really past that. ... The horse is out of the barn.”

One reason has to do with what we’ve learned about the virus itself: There’s now evidence that people who do not show severe symptoms can spread it silently. Another reason is the slow rollout of diagnostic tests in the United States and other countries like Italy and Iran: We don’t have a precise case count or know where the virus might be spreading.

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/6/21161234/coronavirus-covid-19-science-outbreak-ends-endemic-vaccine

Absolutely right.

The dumb@$$es @ CDC have blown it already, insisting on making their own tests with only one sample of the virus back then. 

We won't know the extent till we have broad testing for anyone with a dry hacking cough. 

[Wolfgang Horn + 7]

We have put lots of efforts into science & concepts to develope smart cities. We have not considered vulnerable lockdown cities concepts.

[Marcin2 + 725]

Total death toll in Italy: 366

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/italy-poised-seal-north-coronavirus-live-updates-200307234942500.html

133 died today.

Lockdown administered on Sunday

10 -  14  days delay in administering lockdown in Northern Italy.

How many additional human lives this delay costed ?

 

Edited March 8, 2020 by Marcin2
edit

[0R0 + 6,251]

8 hours ago, Wolfgang Horn said:

We have put lots of efforts into science & concepts to develope smart cities. We have not considered vulnerable lockdown cities concepts.

The future of concentrated high rise cities is in question. They pretty much don't have a reason to exist in a virtual office world. The US unplanned and ad-hoc exurban model makes more sense. But requires the elimination of public policy.

The Exurban model allows you to spread out and provide more real estate per capita and is deadly to public transport. It also promotes marginally higher fertility. 

People are "quarantined" as a matter of course. Driving on their own, telework from home and nearby small offices rather than dozens of floors in a high rise downtown or a corporate megacampus, Amazon orders, food deliveries etc. . 

 

[0R0 + 6,251]

2 hours ago, Marcin2 said:

Total death toll in Italy: 366

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/italy-poised-seal-north-coronavirus-live-updates-200307234942500.html

133 died today.

Lockdown administered on Sunday

10 -  14  days delay in administering lockdown in Northern Italy.

How many additional human lives this delay costed ?

 

None. The lockdown can not be effective. The virus is already out everywhere, and was so when confirmed cases hit 100 a month ago. The only thing the lockdown achieves is economic chaos to go along with the disease spread. They essentially create a petri dish for the rest of the regions' population to be forced to remain in contact with the infectious. Had they acquired sufficient test kits then they could have quarantined the contact chain of carriers, but they didn't and it is too late. All this does is buy a few days till the community spread in the rest of Italy gets to the same number as it would if travel were unrestrained. The community spread is exponential, the travel spread is linear once the disease was widely seeded, which is what happened a month ago already . 

The problem was never a quarantine problem in Italy, it was a testing problem like the US and its @$$hat CDC leadership. 

At least Italy didn't have a deliberate State Department remote controlling typhoid Mary,  who deliberately booked flights from Tokyo for mixed sick and healthy and landed them at unprepared airports with no CDC supervision. And hid the flights from the White House that had explicitly forbidden the return of infected people to the US.

https://khn.org/morning-breakout/behind-the-scenes-state-department-and-cdc-waged-battle-over-flying-americans-with-coronavirus-home/

The government response should never have been to consider geographical quarantine for a microsecond. It was too late a month ago. It is definitely anti-productive now 

[0R0 + 6,251]

8 hours ago, Wolfgang Horn said:

We have put lots of efforts into science & concepts to develope smart cities. We have not considered vulnerable lockdown cities concepts.

Just a word to add. There is no such thing as a smart city. The public planning committees that make the decisions are a subtractive intelligence mechanism where a sub-lowest common denominator outcome is guaranteed as dogma and conformity drive discussion. No real questions are raised, nor real answers given. 

If a private contractor with no government input develops a city then there is a chance for sensible innovation. Otherwise, there is not. 

Besides, the smart city concept, as is city planning in general is an outmoded industrial era utopianism. It has no future in a demographically contracting world.

Edited March 8, 2020 by 0R0

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

24 minutes ago, 0R0 said:

At least Italy didn't have a deliberate State Department remote controlling typhoid Mary,  who deliberately booked flights from Tokyo for mixed sick and healthy and landed them at unprepared airports with no CDC supervision. And hid the flights from the White House that had explicitly forbidden the return of infected people to the US.

https://khn.org/morning-breakout/behind-the-scenes-state-department-and-cdc-waged-battle-over-flying-americans-with-coronavirus-home/

Thanks for that khn link.

[George8944 + 128]

On 3/6/2020 at 7:26 PM, Marcin2 said:

Whole population quarantined, at least Northern Italy.

The area around Milan ( Northen Italy for those who failed geography) is already in quarentine.  

 

[George8944 + 128]

I've never been known for my compassion.   I say release the Krackin!   I don't believe any more cities or countries should be quarentined.  This virus is asymtomatic for the first 10 days or so, so the infectious people are in dispersion long before any government acts.  I think governments should contiue publishing their numbers and their most infected areas and let people decide if they want to travel in those areas.  

I'm not seeing where quarentines are effective.   The virus is still spreading.

[Bob D + 562]

I'm not known for my compassion either.  Testing people who have symptoms is wasting the test kits.  You need to test those without symptoms.  Separate the infected/symptomatic and positive tests from those with negative tests.  Reunite 2-3 weeks later.  The elderly population is going to be thinned.  It just is.  Look at the stats.  There will be a huge adjustment to standards of living.  The global warming people will need to find a new act!

[Guillaume Albasini + 851]

1 hour ago, George8944 said:

I've never been known for my compassion.   I say release the Krackin!   I don't believe any more cities or countries should be quarentined.  This virus is asymtomatic for the first 10 days or so, so the infectious people are in dispersion long before any government acts.  I think governments should contiue publishing their numbers and their most infected areas and let people decide if they want to travel in those areas.  

I'm not seeing where quarentines are effective.   The virus is still spreading.

The quarantine has been effective in China. Only 8 new cases and 1 new death reported today, The number of sick people is decreasing in China.

But it takes some weeks until you get some results.

I'm sure that it's only a question of time until you see such quarantines in others cities in Europe or US.

The goal of the quarantine and other community mitigation measures is to delay the outbreak peak and to decompress  the burden on the health infrastructure.

 

[Otis11 + 551]

11 hours ago, Guillaume Albasini said:

The quarantine has been effective in China. Only 8 new cases and 1 new death reported today, The number of sick people is decreasing in China.

But it takes some weeks until you get some results.

I'm sure that it's only a question of time until you see such quarantines in others cities in Europe or US.

The goal of the quarantine and other community mitigation measures is to delay the outbreak peak and to decompress  the burden on the health infrastructure.

 

Exactly... they know they've lost containment. It's not about containment anymore, it's about delay. Buy time and spread the infection out as long as possible to allow medical resources to handle it. Overwhelming medical resources is a sure way to increase the death toll...

And who knows, if you give it time we might even develop better supportive treatment and be helped by spring weather... (wouldn't count on it, but doesnt hurt)

 

If they wanted containment the US would already be under quarantine in certain cities. We've had community spread for at least 2 weeks... more likely a month. It's all about delaying and minimizing the peak.

Edited March 9, 2020 by Otis11

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 3/6/2020 at 6:40 PM, Marcin2 said:

I do not know why it is not globally top news. Just visited CNN - no info at all.

I think China could not be more grateful than ever of the US media frenzy when situation in China became criical.

Maybe domestically it did not have direct daily impact cause people are behind great wall of censorship. But still information was received by people, Chinese diaspora, VPN, decrease in censorship in critical days.

China used total might of strong autocratic, in these days even totalitarian country able to actually confine to home prisons 50-100 million people, immediately.

I do not see this attitude coming to Italy. Maybe I exaggerate but numbers from latest 3 days are simply devastating.

I do not prize China, in long term even death of thousands of Italians is probably better than autocratic government. But being 800 miles away from this madness NOW It is not easy to acknowledge this. 

 

Please keep in mind that the average death rate in the United States, from influenza, is 25,000 per year. So we need to keep a perspective.

. About 3 to 5 million cases of severe flu illness and about 250 000 to 500 000 flu season deaths worldwide occur due to the influenza virus.

https://healthvigil.com/flu-season-deaths-us-worlswide/ 

Edited March 10, 2020 by ronwagn
added reference

[ronwagn + 6,290]

Meanwhile the people of China are very angry at their leaders! 

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074293/wuhan-communist-chiefs-praise-citys-heroic-residents-after-plan

Wuhan Communist chiefs praise city’s ‘heroic’ residents after plan to teach them to be grateful over coronavirus outbreak backfires

• Proposal to mount a ‘gratitude education campaign’ prompts furious backlash from people at the centre of the Covid-19 outbreak
• Party leaders shift focus on praise for city’s sacrifice after suggestion they should be grateful to Xi Jinping prompts torrent of criticism on social media

[Marcin2 + 725]

5 hours ago, ronwagn said:

Please keep in mind that the average death rate in the United States, from influenza, is 25,000 per year. So we need to keep a perspective.

In Poland in February 2020 there was 800 thousand influenza cases and 23 deaths. I think 25,000 are exaggerated but even if true it is on the basis of 100,000,000 cases or so so death rate is 1/4000 at best but more typical is 1/10000-1/100,000.

With COVID-19 it is 1/200 if you are generally healthy and under 70, for me it is still like playing Russian roulette.

We know that direct effect would be not high but the sheer fear of taking 1/10-1/20 gamble with your life if you have diabeties or ciardiac problems or are over 80 or just 1/200 if you are healthy is something I am really willing to prevent.

[Marcin2 + 725]

1 hour ago, ronwagn said:

Meanwhile the people of China are very angry at their leaders! 

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074293/wuhan-communist-chiefs-praise-citys-heroic-residents-after-plan

Wuhan Communist chiefs praise city’s ‘heroic’ residents after plan to teach them to be grateful over coronavirus outbreak backfires

• Proposal to mount a ‘gratitude education campaign’ prompts furious backlash from people at the centre of the Covid-19 outbreak
• Party leaders shift focus on praise for city’s sacrifice after suggestion they should be grateful to Xi Jinping prompts torrent of criticism on social media

I would really like if it were this way, cause would give more hope for Chinese to change their system, gradually of course.

But my opinion is it strengthened the system and legitymacy of CCP, cause the have taken decisive , very bold steps and their gamble played out cause CoVID19 seems to be contained in China: No new cases apart from epicenter in Hubei with 20, or imported 60 or so. Still 19,000 people are recovering and 20-40 deaths on every 1000-2000 or so that recover daily but contained.

Edited March 10, 2020 by Marcin2
Typo

[Marcin2 + 725]

15 hours ago, Otis11 said:

 

If they wanted containment the US would already be under quarantine in certain cities. We've had community spread for at least 2 weeks... more likely a month. It's all about delaying and minimizing the peak.

It is election year, Trump administration took opportunistic, Middle way. They  do not want to win over COVID19 , they want to prevent loosing November election.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

10 minutes ago, Marcin2 said:

I would really like if it were this way, cause would give more hope for Chinese to change their system, gradually of course.

But my opinion is it strengthened the system and legitymacy of CCP, cause the have taken decisive , very bold steps and their gamble played out cause CoVID19 seems to be contained in China: No new cases apart from epicenter in Hubei with 20, or imported 60 or so. Still 19,000 people are recovering and 20-40 deaths on every 1000-2000 or so that recover daily but contained.

The Chinese people are not happy with their government. They are the judges. 

[George8944 + 128]

On 3/8/2020 at 9:30 PM, Bob D said:

You need to test those without symptoms

Good in theory, but if they don't have enough test kits to identify the infected, they surely don't have enough to test the asympomatic.   Besides, in the few days it taks test results to come back, the person with a negative test result could contract the virus.   

 

[George8944 + 128]

On 3/8/2020 at 9:44 PM, Guillaume Albasini said:

The quarantine has been effective in China

How can you tell?   Decreasing cases does not mean it's effective.  It could simply mean we are seeing of the result of the virus having run its course.    I can't disagree with the shape of your bell curves,   but I would like to see the area under those curves.  The shorter bell curve has "fat tails" as they are called.  I think all that happens with mass quarentine of something that spreads quickly and easily is the peak is lower, but the infection lingers for a longer time.  The aggregate number of infections is the same.  It's called kurtosis. 

Mass quarentine is good if you want to buy time as if a vaccine is immenent or your waiting for the onset of warm weather to depress viral activity.   

Spreading out the infection rate isn't necessarily a stupid endevour.   It does enable medical professionals and suppliers to keep up with the demand.

[Bob D + 562]

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

 

 

[Guillaume Albasini + 851]

1 hour ago, Bob D said:

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

 

 

Thanks for that link. Excellent analysis.

You have to read this to understand the current situation and the effectiveness of lockdowns.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

3 hours ago, Guillaume Albasini said:

Thanks for that link. Excellent analysis.

You have to read this to understand the current situation and the effectiveness of lockdowns.

Or you can follow the mass media hysterics and then slit your wrists to avoid the rush...