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elbows said:
Another bad sign for there and most other places:



From BBC live updates page at 21:38 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-51955509
Click to expand...

a perfectly sensible thing to suggest under the circumstances, and there is a USN hospital ship on the way (slowly). deB also floated tbe idea of a SF style quarantine, which would be difficult to deal with but would surely shorten the duration of the emergency. this being NY though, cuomo had to take his diq out right there during the news conference and piss all over deB's suggestions. local chat rooms are now having cuomo v. deBlasio bun fights, with me in the minority of Bill supporters.
 
bimble said:
Governor of California orders a 'shelter in place' lockdown. This says "The state expected a hospitalization rate of 20%".
That seems..absolutely huge?

www.theguardian.com

All Californians ordered to shelter in place as governor estimates more than 25m will get virus

Governor’s letter to Trump says roughly 56% of state’s residents likely to contract disease over eight weeks
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
Click to expand...

The rates are thought to be pretty high for some age ranges. eg this is what was in the Imperial College report from Monday that caused a u-turn in government strategy:

Screenshot 2020-03-17 at 14.48.22.png

If there are caveats to the 20% figure that simply werent mentioned in the article, then the number isnt necessarily at odds with those estimates. eg if they were talking about those aged 60+.

I dunno, there have been some other numbers out of the USA that werent a perfect fit for what we've heard elsewhere, such as percentage of young people requiring hospitalisation. I dont know what the story is, whether its to do with trying to get younger people to heed the warnings, or whether something got miscommunicated, or whether the USA is especially concerned about issues relating to obesity and related conditions.
 
Just got an email from someone in Guatemala city. He says they are fully locked down, all public transport stopped. Its a charity and he says they can't even deliver food to people whilst they wait for government permits to be able to be out on the streets at all. The country has I think so far had just one confirmed covid death.
 
elbows said:
Premium paywall :(
Click to expand...
The coronavirus pandemic is exacting a heavy toll on Italy, with hospitals overwhelmed and a nationwide lockdown imposed. But experts are also concerned about a seemingly high death rate, with the number of fatalities outstripping the total reported in China.

Of the 41,035 people confirmed coronavirus patients in Italy, 3,405 so far have died - an increase of 427 in the last 24 hours. By contrast China has almost twice as many cases, 81,155, but 3,245 fatalities.


In very crude terms, this means that around eight per cent of confirmed coronavirus patients have died in Italy, compared to four per cent in China. By this measure Germany, which has so far identified 13,000 cases and 42 deaths, has a fatality rate of just 0.3 per cent.

So why the disparity?

According to Prof Walter Ricciardi, scientific adviser to Italy’s minister of health, the country’s mortality rate is far higher due to demographics - the nation has the second oldest population worldwide - and the manner in which hospitals record deaths.

“The age of our patients in hospitals is substantially older - the median is 67, while in China it was 46,” Prof Ricciardi says. “So essentially the age distribution of our patients is substantially squeezed to an older age and this is substantial in increasing the lethality.”

A study in JAMA this week found that almost 40 per cent of infections and 87 per cent of deaths in the country have been in patients over 70 years old.

According to modelling the majority of this age group are likely to need critical hospital care - including 80 per cent of 80-somethings - putting immense pressure on the health system.

But Prof Ricciardi added that Italy’s death rate may also appear high because of how doctors record fatalities.

“The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.

“On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many had two or three,” he says.

Other experts have also expressed scepticism about the available data. Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, says that countries do not yet have a good indication of how many mild infections they have. If further testing finds more asymptomatic cases spreading undetected, the mortality rate will drop.

“It’s too early to make a comparison across Europe,” he says. “We do not have detailed sero-surveillance [additional testing] of the population and we do not know how many asymptomatic people are spreading it.”

Prof McKee adds that testing was not consistent continent-wide. “In Germany, epidemiological surveillance is more challenging - simply because of the complexity of working in a federal state and because public health is organised very much at the local level."

But there are other factors that may have contributed to Italy’s fatality rates, experts say. This includes a high rate of smoking and pollution - the majority of deaths have been in the northern region Lombardy region, which is notorious for poor air quality.

And there’s also no question that parts of Italy’s health system have been overwhelmed with a surge of coronavirus patients and are struggling to cope.

“Doctors in Italy haven’t been dealing with one or two patients in care.. but up to 1,200,” says Dr Mike Ryan, health emergencies programme executive director at the World Health Organization. “The fact they’re saving so many is a small miracle in itself.”

This pressure is likely to get worse as more healthcare workers are infected and have to isolate - already, 2,000 have contracted the virus.

"Based on Italy’s experience, there is a real concern for the UK,” adds Prof McKee. “Compared to almost every other European country we have a relative shortage of ventilators and medical staff.”
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Thanks. The usual stuff then. Sadly we'll probably find out which of these factors were not a big contribution to the end results, as we get more data from other countries whose epidemics are a bit behind Italys.

Although for anyone wondering about how much room countries have to fiddle about with their death statistics, there is a big clue in that article:

“The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.

“On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many had two or three,” he says.
Click to expand...

Personally I think that if you die and test positive for Covid-19, that should count as a Covid-19 death, even if the patient was likely to die of another condition at some point, and certainly even if their existing conditions contributed to the death.
 
elbows said:
Thanks. The usual stuff then. Sadly we'll probably find out which of these factors were not a big contribution to the end results, as we get more data from other countries whose epidemics are a bit behind Italys.

Although for anyone wondering about how much room countries have to fiddle about with their death statistics, there is a big clue in that article:



Personally I think that if you die and test positive for Covid-19, that should count as a Covid-19 death, even if the patient was likely to die of another condition at some point, and certainly even if their existing conditions contributed to the death.
Click to expand...

I think blaming a death on something else if they're Covid-19 positive is just one more way of hiding the bodies. I don't know about your government, but mine certainly will do that. I also think the reason tests are so hard to get because they can blame "unknown respiratory illness" or other cause rather than Covid-19. My county has tested a total to 22 people. They triaged several hundred and sent them home with order to self-isolate. How many of those were actually positive?
 
Following on from earlier discussion about USA, here is some data. Note that this is based on rather incomplete data, eg there were lots of cases where hospital, ICU and death info wasnt available, so had to be left out. And we might also expect their data to be further skewed by a lack of testing.

www.cdc.gov

Severe Outcomes Among Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19

COVID-19 can result in severe disease, including hospitalization, admission to an intensive care unit, and death, especially among older adults. Everyone can take actions, such as social distancing...
www.cdc.gov www.cdc.gov

Screenshot 2020-03-20 at 14.54.41.png
 
elbows I think you should post your Italy fatality comparison chart here on this thread because I don't think so many people saw it on the Italy thread.
 
Point taken, but I already hate being the one to share a bunch of that stuff so I'm not going to ramp that up further.
 
Poland have just had their conference.


They are hoping to have the virus under control by 10th of April. So Easter is cancelled. That's big news for Poles.

Ministers thanked the nation for their cooperation and congratulated everyone, but to continue to do as we're doing. We have to act in solidarity with each other. He asked young people to help their neighbours with shopping and dog walking. He thanked students for taking this seriously and not treating it like an extended holiday. Thanked teachers for sorting out home working. Education is set to move to online teaching and they are trying to work out how to do it.

Lots of thanks.

Testing is still a problem. There are only 13 labs in the whole of Poland and they are running at full capacity.
 
Under control I think meaning, by that point they will know who has what and we should expect that to be the peak of the outbreak. After that it will likely continue on.

Poland shut down its borders and locked down at 70 cases confirmed. We are now at 411 cases expected, which is 50 more than yesterday but exepct that number by the end of the day to be about 80.

We are 1 week in to Lockdown.
 
FabricLiveBaby! said:
Under control I think meaning, by that point they will know who has what and we should expect that to be the peak of the outbreak. After that it will likely continue on.

Poland shut down its borders and locked down at 70 cases confirmed. We are now at 411 cases expected, which is 50 more than yesterday but exepct that number by the end of the day to be about 80.

We are 1 week in to Lockdown.
Click to expand...
Ah, just saw this post. Both of you are there. Stay healthy :)
 
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