Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
A collection of little videos here. I have something in my eye.
Fortunately, the Italian national anthem is very chirpy. Imagine people in UK singing God Save the Queen and how depressing it would be.
A collection of little videos here. I have something in my eye.
Grim. All those poeople dying alone, unable to see their loved ones.Though the news is obviously not as concentrated on Italy any more, what with the (completely predictable) explosion of cases in other countries, lockdown measures in place from San Francisco to San Sebastian, it's heartening at least to see some other countries taking steps to prevent the spread of the virus before it gets to Italy-levels of disaster. And a reminder today that it really is a disaster in the worst affected parts of Italy. This report from the Washington Post on the situation in Bergamo is perhaps a little melodramatic but the message is valid.
An infection control experiment that was rolled out in a small Italian community at the start of Europe’s coronavirus crisis has stopped all new infections in the town that was at the centre of the country’s outbreak.
Through testing and retesting of all 3,300 inhabitants of the town of Vò, near Venice, regardless of whether they were exhibiting symptoms, and rigorous quarantining of their contacts once infection was confirmed, health authorities have been able to completely stop the spread of the illness there.
“In the UK, there are a whole lot of infections that are completely ignored,” Prof Crisanti said. “We were able to contain the outbreak here because we identified and eliminated the ‘submerged’ infections and isolated them,” he said of the Vò approach. “That is what makes the difference.”
The first testing round, carried out on the town’s entire population in late February, found 3 per cent of the population infected, though half of the carriers had no symptoms. After isolating all those infected, the second testing round about 10 days later showed the infection rate had dropped to 0.3 per cent.
Importantly, however, this second round identified at least six individuals who had the virus but no symptoms, meaning they could be quarantined. “If they hadn’t been identified, the infection would have resumed,” explained Prof Crisanti.
Seems like some positive signs in terms of cases/deaths stabilising now. Flavour?
^^ Spain’s death toll rising rapidly too!
Italian authorities have pressed charges against more than 40,000 people for violating the lockdown imposed to contain the coronavirus, according to figures from the interior ministry.
Police stopped and checked 700,000 citizens between 11 and 17 March, 43,000 of whom were found to have violated the decree, which also ordered the closing of shops, bars, restaurants, gyms and swimming pools.
It'll be the same here, probably worse. Despite the obvious risks to their fellow humans and themselves, forcing people to stay in what might be daylight-starved small flats for two weeks or longer is going to send some people right off the rails while others may be escaping abusive partners or violence in the house.FFS, what is wrong with people?
Yes, I saw that, awful.Another 427 deaths reported today, now more than China, 3405 -v- 3234.
Italy has overtaken China as the country with the most coronavirus-related deaths in the world after reporting 3,405 fatalities from the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a stark illustration of how Europe has become the new epicentre of the pandemic, Italian officials reported 427 additional deaths on the same day Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus was first identified, recorded no new infections.
UN and Italian health authorities have cited a variety of reasons for Italy's toll, most notably its large elderly population, which is the second oldest in the world.
The vast majority of people who have died in Italy - 87 per cent, as of Thursday - have been older than 70 years old.
Italy, with its population of 60 million people, has now recorded about 150 more deaths than China, which has a population of more than 1 billion.
Yep, it is grim.
Lets just hope that those who say UK is just a week or two behind are wrong.
elbows you may not be saying that we are x days or y weeks behind Italy but those sorts of comments do appear on the news media from time to time, I am pretty sure I have heard it today even. Italy with its 60 odd million population now has more fatalities that China with its massive population, were the UK and France and Spain and Germany etc all to follow Italy, the numbers of European deaths would make China seem like a tiny thing.Since its such a critical issue, I feel the need to be pedantic about that. Nobody I know of is claiming a week. 2 weeks is the claim. The number of UK deaths is still consistent with that, although it is always possible it could start to diverge at any point from what Italys was 2 weeks earlier. In just a few more days I might be able to say something new about that, cant tell yet.
elbows you may not be saying that we are x days or y weeks behind Italy but those sorts of comments do appear on the news media from time to time, I am pretty sure I have heard it today even. Italy with its 60 odd million population now has more fatalities that China with its massive population, were the UK and France and Spain and Germany etc all to follow Italy, the numbers of European deaths would make China seem like a tiny thing.
Indeed I have seen the government response and wished them to do more and sooner because I believed if they did we would not need to "follow Italy" .. Don't get me wrong, we may end up doing that in which case I would think that our government has failed to protect us, well failed to protect the victims at least.welters, you've been reading some of the most on-point analysis available on this for weeks and week (cheers elbows ), you've seen the figures, you've seen the way things are progressing over and over and over again, and you've seen the totally inadequate response from the government - have you not actually taken any of it in?