Just_a_fan wrote: ↑19 Mar 2020, 15:41
There's got to be a reason why Italy has been hit so hard by this, particularly the number of deaths. Compare to, say, Germany where the number of cases is quite high (about 1/3 of the number in Italy) but deaths are very low (fewer than 1% of those in Italy). That's a huge disparity. Why? Germany isn't in lock down, by the way.
The answer to this question is very simple to answer:
- Italy has been hit first, thus is 14-18 days ahead of other countries. Because we are talking about an exponential spread, the number of days matters significantly.
- Italy, due to fact that they are so far ahead is facing overloaded health institutes. Not enough resources equals more people without help.
- The infection takes time to develop its severity. It's not as if everyone gets infected, shows symptoms within a weak and dies. There's a certain progress to it. Some have mild symptoms, others more severe. Regardless, those who have it, seem to be facing a 14+ days struggle to beat it. Some fall seriously ill during this time and die (organ failure).
- Because Italy was the first within Europe, most governments, even those with little action (no full lockdown) have still improved the numbers by increasing awareness and importance of social distancing. This may also mean that in our countries, the people at a higher risk are more careful and have not been infected yet.
Coming back to the first reason, don't underestimate the impact of it. In Switzerland, we are at day 24 of the pandemic (counting from when the first person was positively tested). In 14 days (so day 10) we have gone from 87 positive cases to 3888 (day 24). One could say that from those initially 87 positive cases, already 33 have died after a 14 day fight. I don't want to think or speculate what the fatality number will be in 14 days from now.
Given Germany and many other countries have been hit way later than Italy, I'd give the fatality rate a little time before drawing conclusions. Look to Spain though - it's the country not far behind Italy in number of fatalities.
I just listened to our governments press conference before and some interesting things were mentioned:
- People who require intensive care require it for more than 2 weeks. (more strain on ICU availability)
- The survival rate of patients in ICU is 50/50, potentially worse. In other words, most patients who require intensive care, possibly don't make it - though this number is not only one from our country but what the expectation is considering data from Italy according to our government.
- people end up dying of organ failure (not enough oxygen, despite artificial ventilation)
- there are young people with no former illnesses currently in intensive care too (in their 30ties) and require artificial ventilation too with conditions not good. There goes the myth that only people in risk groups are at risk.
References (In German):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OHE_161lrQ / Press Conference Swiss Government 19.03.2020