il virus: covid-19 in italy

[elbows]

Well thats the thing about novel viruses, we dont tend to notice they are there unless they cause an outbreak large enough to make the hospital numbers get so bad that the event stands out and gets investigated properly. And during winter flu seasons the hospital system is quite used to seeing many cases, so its even easier to overlook something new under those circumstances.

Here is the paper:

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This is one of the reasons I celebrate the idea that we are going to have a permanently changed attitude towards routine diagnostic testing going forwards, in the UK and presumably in Italy too. Even when such systems are not setup to detect the new virus because its new so there are no specific tests, ruling out all the viruses we do know about increases the chances that next time someone will spot an unusual situation and sound the alarm much sooner than happened with this virus.

 

[elbows]

I feel bad for Italy in the second wave, probably deserves more news attention. Their number of people in hospital including intensive care has exceeded that seen in the first wave, probably because regions that were relatively spared last time are faring worse in the second wave.


The following doesnt include ICU patients but shows the regional contribution to the non-ICU hospitalised patients picture.


In a few other countries I have looked at, even when hospital numbers reach or exceed those recorded in the first wave, the intensive care numbers are usually still some way short of the first time. Unfortunately although Italys intensive care numbers havent reached the level seen last time, they arent that far off.


Made with data from pcm-dpc/COVID-19

 

[Flavour]

Eh, yeah. It's bad. In the first wave the poorer regions in the South were relatively spared, and the virus was more concentrated in the richest and best-equipped regions, but now it's all over-- and conspiracy theorism, "no-mask" people, and so on, i.e. dangerous behavior, seems to be quite prevalent in much of the South. This is anecdotal and not backed up by research but I have no trouble believing it is a factor.

Something that's been pointed out by many of the left groups is that Italy would have been much better prepared to face Covid 20 or even 30 years ago than it is today, in terms of hospital numbers, doctor numbers, nurse numbers, etc.

 

[elbows]

Something that's been pointed out by many of the left groups is that Italy would have been much better prepared to face Covid 20 or even 30 years ago than it is today, in terms of hospital numbers, doctor numbers, nurse numbers, etc.

A story repeated in many countries across Europe. Aside from the obvious factors of neoliberalism, lower tax rates, not spending as high a proportion of GDP on healthcare, greater proportion of healthcare budget spent on tech & drugs etc, I'd like to know whether emergency cold war planning caused governments to keep hospital capacity at a certain level, which they then ditched when the cold war ended.

 

[frogwoman]

Brutal Covid second wave exposes Italy's shortage of intensive care staff

Hospitals report lack of specialists and some citizens turning against health workers as death toll surges

www.theguardian.com

Flavour is this accurate? This is absolutely grim

 

[cupid_stunt]

Brutal Covid second wave exposes Italy's shortage of intensive care staff

Hospitals report lack of specialists and some citizens turning against health workers as death toll surges

www.theguardian.com

Flavour is this accurate? This is absolutely grim

Thar's makes very grim reading,

Covid-related deaths surged by 731 on Tuesday – the highest daily toll since early April, when Italy was in complete lockdown – as weaknesses in the healthcare system across the country become more exposed.

According to a study by Johns Hopkins University in the US, Italy has recorded four deaths per 100 infections - the third highest rate in the world. Tuesday’s count equated to one death every two minutes.

Admissions to intensive care units have almost doubled to 3,612 since 1 November and the number of people in hospital with coronavirus – 33,074 – has eclipsed that reached during the first wave.

Yet, people are protesting against restrictions, and medical staff are the targets of discrimination and aggression.

 

[frogwoman]

Episodes included having notices with their names on pinned outside lifts in apartment buildings warning them not to enter as they might have Covid, parents banning their children from playing with those of medics, and spouses being barred from shops.

Doctors have also had their car windows smashed and in some cases police intervention was needed. More recently, a mural dedicated to healthcare workers outside Milan’s Sacco hospital was defaced.

 

[Flavour]

That is truly utterly fucking grim frogwoman and all I can say is far as I can tell, where I am, it's not like that. But I don't live in a run-down inner-city district (not anymore and/or not for now at least) where this stuff is more likely to happen. As far as the reports of the stresses on the healthcare system go, yes, they're absolutely accurate. Piedmont in the north is supposed to be one of the richer regions of Italy, though it's a funny one really as it has some areas which are just as rich as the very richest places in the country (e.g. Alba and the Langhe) and some areas that are really poor and depressed (e.g. all the outskirts of Turin on the west side of the Po, and all the mountain valleys) but the healthcare system for the entire region is singular, and badly underequipped. There is a serious shortage of doctors and nurses in Italy partly because of brain-drain, lots go to Netherlands, Ireland, Germany and of course the UK cos pay is better. This has not resulted in improved pay to tempt them back. So it's a very bad situation indeed, made worse by 30 years of underspending on healthcare as I've said before.

I don't think there's actually that much active hostility to healthcare workers, like, that's pretty insane and probably just a few isolated incidents being bigged up by the guardian for clicks/shares... but it's still not good. I can confirm that there is no certainly no more clapping from balconies for healthcare workers as in March/April. I think that's a common thread across Europe though, right? I don't think Italy is particularly unique in that respect, the pandemic-fatigue and stuff... but it is particularly badly prepared for Covid given its crumbling healthcare infrastructure, extremely old and ageing population, severe economic inequalities both between regions and in within regions, and a government which, being a populist/center-left stitch up, doesn't really have any radical ideas that might make immediate tangible improvements to peoples lives, and of course, the "Recovery Fund" promised by the EU is yet to arrive or at least that's what the Italian government say to excuse the fact that there hasn't been much emergency public spending to help people .... all the EU's fault innit (is it? partially maybe, but... difficult one)

 

[Flavour]

entirely anecdotal update: a friend tells me her cousin (who is a doctor in the richest but worst-affected region, Lombardy) was forbidden from getting tested for Covid (as were other doctors) as a positive result that stopped them from working would mean there was else on call and nobody to look after the sick. and you know, you can understand the logic behind it, but the fact that that's where we are... it's totally insane.