[Offwidth]

News from Italy

https://www.esicm.org/covid-19-update-from-our-colleagues-in-northern-italy/

10% in Intensive Care compared to the 5% Chinese data may be because China has proportionately fewer elderly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/world/europe/coronavirus-italy-elderly.html

A Guardian article yesterday said there were 50% hospitalisations of those who tested positive in Italy but this was later edited out (the figure for China was 20%). I suspect the Italians may be avoiding complacency, given the large number of elderly patients and extra risks if they fall seriously ill at home.

[petejh]

Interesting to consider the differing proportions of over 65 years old between countries suffering covid outbreak. Japan's population should suffer proportionally worse from covid, based on proportion of elderly. But so far the numbers don't suggest that, with death rates in the lower end compared to Italy's (Europe's highest proportion of elderly population) higher death rate.



Maybe Japan have very good containment, or a top quality health service with spare capacity. Or there are likely other underlying causes preventing their elderly population not succumbing at the same rate as Italy's elderly population. Or maybe they're just not reporting very well?
Japan's population is famous for its relatively good health long into old age compared to the rest of the world. Not so much the case in Italy - and especially so in the UK and US which have relatively high levels of ill health in old age. Too early to say and maybe the proportion of deaths in Japan will increase (obviously I hope they don't).

As someone posted further back up the thread, when this event is over the data will shine more interesting light on differences between countries standards of underlying health, quality of health services and other underlying issues affecting quality of life. Poverty will probably be an underlying factor as always, but the fact that the younger seem to escape much more lightly than the older - relatively more affluent but probably suffering more underlying ill health - might make poverty less of a factor. Maybe it will also help focus minds on the relative merits of good health versus level of affluence...

[andy popp]

As someone posted further back up the thread, when this event is over the data will shine more interesting light on differences between countries standards of underlying health, quality of health services and other underlying issues affecting quality of life. Poverty will probably be an underlying factor as always, but the fact that the younger seem to escape much more lightly than the older - relatively more affluent but probably suffering more underlying ill health - might make poverty less of a factor. Maybe it will also help focus minds on the relative merits of good health versus level of affluence...

Right! I think underlying levels of heath, healthcare systems, and relative poverty/inequality will all have big effects on outcomes. But each disease also has its own profile. If I remember right the 1918 flu pandemic was far more deadly for young adults than any other demographic.

[jwi]

Wasn't that mostly down to the statistics being young men in trenches?

[Oldmanmatt]

Cultural differences in degree of physical contact between strangers or acquaintances , seems likely to play into it.
Given some of the preliminary transmission data described in the various articles above. Lack of significant aerosol transmission, for one.
Getting hugged or kissed, by relatively “remote” friends and acquaintances, is certainly more likely in Italy; than it is here.

[tomtom]

Couple of articles stating the overall mortality rate in Italy is c. Twice that from China due to a generally older population (amongst those that caught it).

[AJM]

Off topic, but I'd be interested in the logistics of getting to Ceuse via train. Could you possibly drop me a DM with the websites etc you're using? Cheers

Can't speak for Duncan but his post mentions Avignon, which is served by direct train from London in the summer (London to Avignon, Aix and Marseille).

But more widely I've found seat61.com to be a mine of useful information for European train planning!

[seankenny]

Off topic, but I'd be interested in the logistics of getting to Ceuse via train. Could you possibly drop me a DM with the websites etc you're using? Cheers

Can't speak for Duncan but his post mentions Avignon, which is served by direct train from London in the summer (London to Avignon, Aix and Marseille).

But more widely I've found seat61.com to be a mine of useful information for European train planning!

I've done London to Avignon, it's a very civilised journey down and there is car hire at the station. Not sure about Ceuse but it's super convenient for Buoux.

[dr_botnik]

Panic buying at the big Millhouses Tesco has hit the eggs, tinned good, handwash, and loo roll. I think all the media attention is going to soon tire people out and, in a month or two, people will be all over the over exposure.
I wonder how much overlap there would be on a venn diagram containing datasets of "people who panic buy" and "people who still popped out to the shop while they had flu like symptoms for a pain au raisin*"

*insert your preferred pastry or fresh good here

[Dolly]

Still fine at ALDI 200 yds away
Yes I shop there as well as Waitrose

[Oldmanmatt]

I find the panic buying odd. My partner had to try a restock the Bunker today, couldn’t even get toilet roll in Bookers.
She went to buy pasta in the Torquay Sainsbury, empty shelves.
I went out to buy stuff, here in Glasgow, as I have several times in the last few weeks and there’s no sign of panic buying.
No1 daughter came down with tonsillitis this week. Mrs OMM couldn’t even find paracetamol, ended up feeding a 14 year old junior Calpol.
Plenty on the shelves here.

Is this a “Southerners” heading to the storm shelters, whilst the “Northerners” get their big coat out of the wardrobe?

[moose]

Not sure the North is immune - in Ilkley's shops, the toilet roll and handwash / hand sanitiser shelves have been empty for a week or two.  No shortage of any foods thankfully.   That said, pretty chilled in comparisson with my brother's messages from Hong Kong, which have a World War Z, zombie apocalypse vibe (mind you his main concern is still Leeds United's promotion push, which I guess is some comfort).

[Will Hunt]

I'm surprised there's been so much concern on here about stopping the spread of the virus, given that Power Club in the winter months barely goes a week without someone saying "full of a miserable, stinking cold so just went to the wall and spread germs on all the holds".

[tomtom]

Pasta was sold out in Tescos near here - and most but not all paracetamol was gone too.

Back when the last hoarding time was (brexit) I couldn’t get bread flour easily - so got a load a couple of weeks back. That was all gone yesterday.

Sanitiser aside / I suspect it’s more supply chain issues (stock in the wrong places etc..) than anything actually running out.

[nai]

Sanitiser aside / I suspect it’s more supply chain issues (stock in the wrong places etc..) than anything actually running out.

Mrs reports that folk are nicking the sanitizer dispensers off hospital walls.

[Will Hunt]

Not a sheet of bog roll left in Bingley on Friday. Presumably this thing makes you shit yourself to death.

[Footwork]

Mrs reports that folk are nicking the sanitizer dispensers off hospital walls.

Same here FFS 

This whole every person for themselves attitude pisses me off. So what about the health workers who will actually need it when dealing with the outbreak rather than one selfish cnut who thinks having an industrial bottle by their bedside will keep them safe when it's as much use there as the dream catcher above their bed.

[Bradders]

Well said.

It's the dichotomy between collective responsibility and rational self-preservation. It's logical for everyone to just carry on as normal (because that has the best overall outcome) and then there wouldn't be the supply issues / run on the bank / stock market fall, yet it's also entirely rational for people to want to look after their own interests and hoard supplies / withdraw their cash / sell their shares because no one wants to be the person left with nothing but their own smug sense of personal responsibility.

The media have a lot to answer for here. It's in no one's interests but their own to be spreading panic and fear inducing messages as in many of the headlines from the last couple of weeks.

[petejh]

I wonder if thefts from clinics of stuff like hand sanitiser have more to do with opportunistic twats seeing a  money-making opportunity, rather than thinking of self-preservation (we’re hardly in bubonic plague or Ebola lethality).
After someone on here pointed out the absurd prices that face masks are fetching on eBay, I had a word with our warehouse guys to tell them to control the issue of the 300 boxes of face-masks we have in our stores. Everyday items are suddenly in profiteering territory. Tulip bubble..
 

[Steve R]

opportunistic twats seeing a  money-making opportunity

Guess you didn't get them listed then!?  Good for you.  Virtue signal alert, couldn't quite bring myself to sell my modest stock of masks (would've been the easiest few hundred quid I'd ever exploited) though must admit I was tempted.  Opportunistic twatdom narrowly avoided!

[petejh]

Ha! I must admit the thought crossed my mind of putting a few boxes ‘aside’.. like you say opportunity for shortt-term easy money is high at the moment. But I don’t want to be that person setting a poor example to others, and anyway it would amount to theft of company assets! I let our HSE director know my concern and a mass email has been set round the group warning of stock control issues.
It won’t surprise me if people take advantage to make some quick easy money, in our company and others. I expect to see stories in the coming months of theft and hoarding of in-demand items.

[tomtom]

A couple of personal CV19 snippets from people I've been talking to...

Baby friends - both parents work as Micro-biologists at MRI (Big Manchester hospital) - and were quite relaxed/sanguine about it. Suggested UK's strategy was to slow the spread as much as possible and pray for a warm spring. They both thought warmer weather/summer would bring a natural lull in the disease - though it would tick along at a lower rate over summer then come back in the autumn/winter.

Second - friend we saw this afternoon, who had been on holiday at the hotel next door to the one quarantined in Tenerife a week ago... and been in a sort of self quarantine just in case since then (but had gone out as they were going spare..).

My own musings FWIW... rate of new cases doubles roughly every 6 days... which means we're about (very roughly) a month behind Italys total. So unless we manage to contain things much more (which I think is a little unlikely) then we'll be at the 5k+ cases in the first week of April... which is at which time the Italians have decided to lock things down. Quite a balance if the warm weather factors are correct...

[SA Chris]

Long easter holidays then.

Just in time for mint connies on the coast..

[duncan]

...we'll be at the 5k+ cases in the first week of April... which is at which time the Italians have decided to lock things down.

I am so up for two weeks self-isolation around then. Somewhere remote in Pembroke would be ideal.

Joking aside, it’s all about flattening that peak so my Mum, Sister, and other high-risk folk still have a hospital bed to go to if they need to.

[tomtom]

...we'll be at the 5k+ cases in the first week of April... which is at which time the Italians have decided to lock things down.

I am so up for two weeks self-isolation around then. Somewhere remote in Pembroke would be ideal.

Joking aside, it’s all about flattening that peak so my Mum, Sister, and other high-risk folk still have a hospital bed to go to if they need to.

Exactly. It’s really good news that kids are not badly affected (in general) but worrying for me with octogenarian parents.. as it will be for many.