Good News From Italy?

Italy was the first country in Europe to have had massive incidences of CV-19 cases. If we look at Italy's daily-rate graphic (here) we see that there has been a leveling off of the number of cases reported daily.

This does not mean that the disease-rate is failing in Italy. It just means that CV-19 has stabilized at a "plateau". It may be just waiting for another explosion, and that depends upon human behaviour.

But, that will be difficult. Because human-behaviour has changed. The word is "out" and not just a newspaper-piece about a ravaging disease in Wuhan, China. Italy has been on lock-down for a week now. Nobody goes out, except to shop for food.

Which is why, as of today, here in France, we are all officially sequestered at home. To leave the house, I must take with me a signed government-issued document that I find on the Internet, download it, fill-it-in, and sign-it.

I take this document with me wherever I go, because it explains why I am driving a car. I can be stopped by the police at any time. (I need this document to go shopping at the nearest supermarket. Others as well perhaps if they must go to a workplace and cannot work from home.)

Will these measures work to arrest the disease? Time will tell. This "public-arrest of sorts" is limited in time - so obviously French authorities believe that mitigating public-walkabout is what is generating the disease.

And they may well be right ...

 

GOOD NEWS FROM CHINA?

From the World Health Organization here and the NPR here web-sites:
“Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died. By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected.” And,
"Outside of Wuhan — the city at the epicenter of the outbreak — the death rate in China has been much lower: about 0.7%. That's fewer than 1 fatality per 100 cases."

So, yes, precautions must be taken. But, this epidemic can be tamed. It will nonetheless take some deaths whilst doing so ...

 

YOUR worried?

Mate if you drove from Spain to Austria you would not have covered the distance I am from a capital city

 

It is not just the deaths from the disease

It clogs ICU beds so they are NOT available to those who need it I.e. coronary artery bypass. What willl forever be unknown is how many secondary deaths this caused because the patient could not get an ICU bed

 

Riding a bicycle cannot be dangerous as far as this virus goes. It may be logical to prevent grouping together, but getting exercise and fresh air are good for health.

 

@LafayetteBis After all of that, we would also have to face the consequences of the coronavirus. I'm as much afraid, if not more of that than the coronavirus.

 

And that is truly tragic, it is. But let's presume(since we have nothing else to go on) that the death rate would have been roughly the same post quarantine and pre quarantine.(Since it fluctuates, but within a percentage point.) I think we're going to come to a realization(hospital beds be damned or not) that it doesn't make that much of a difference.

It's not like China 'cleared it', so much as China slowed it down to the point where they're like "You know what? This really isn't going to make a difference." The sooner we accept that, the better.

 

A. China's number are complete b*ll*cks. There's is no way, given the level of travel over Chinese New Year that they managed to contain the virus as they have claimed. Look at this map, it's clearly false reporting.

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B. Italy will see a surge in cases once the quarantine is over, or they will quarantine for 2 months and have no economy left.

 

Then there's that too. The Chinese are liars that can't be trusted. Of course, it's their very nature of lying that got us in this mess to begin with.

 

The best lesson to be learned is that humans and health count much more than markets and money.
It is incredible that such a lesson be necessary.
The present economic system has to be revisited and revised top to bottom.

 

China are solely to blame for this pandemic and must be reprimanded. Their backwards hygiene practices need to be addressed to protect the world, the fact they waited 6 weeks before acting (they discovered the case on December 1st) and letting everyone travel over Chinese New Year. I would go as far as saying they purposefully let it out the bag so they weren't the only economy to suffer.

 

Big place Aussi-stralia! Population-wise, not so "big"!

And, frankly, population-wise not-being-so-big has many, many fine attributes ...

 

I frankly have not seen that warning espoused by any medical practitioner in France.

The French, however, yes, are asking their Military Services (who have hospitals as well) to participate in the mounting number of cases.

We, in Europe, were not prepared for the magnitude of this problem. But, then who was "prepared" ... ?

 

PLANETARY HEALTH

From the Guardian: Tip of the iceberg - excerpt:

 

BETWEEN LIFE & DEATH

You are creating an "out" argument in the midst of one of the most serious diseases to have afflicted mankind.

Stay the hell away from other people, if possible. And when it is not possible (in a supermarket) then wear a damn-mask.

And that is the problem - masks. No mask-maker foresaw the hypersonic demand for masks that would occur. Try to buy one on the Internet from China and the delay is three weeks!

So, wear anything around that attractive face of yours over the mouth and above the nose. Do your shopping with a shopping-list - then get-in-and-out-of-the-supermarket asap! Avoid any gathering of people - and that means both family, friends and restaurants!

I have to make-do with one of the most strange rules imposed by any government during an epidemic. The French government requires me to fill out a form, carry it with me when driving, that indicates clearly why I am doing so! It is not idiocy in a serious-epidemic to ask people not-to-mix with one another as much as is humanly possible!

No, I don't see that sort of measure being implemented in the US. Which is why, I suggest, per-capita the US will suffer more deaths than France and maybe even Europe.

So, think about it! If everybody starts doing what-they-wanna-do in the midst of the most serious world-epidemic ever then this one simply kills more people.

It's yours to choose - yes, between life&death ... !

 

Coronavirus is mortel. What happening "afterwards" need not be.

But, I fear most for the US. Having lived in both countries a substantial period of my life, one of the fundamental differences I have noticed between the US and Europe, is America's unquenchable thirst for freedom-of-action. (Which is both good&bad depending upon the circumstance, but is not the key-subject at present.)

But this time around, the menace is a real killer of human beings regardless of economic-circumstance (poor or rich) or personal-preferences of opinion ...

 

I'm afraid of both. The economic system is extremly fragile, and an economic crisis would kill many people as well. By the way, it's better for now to confine.
We're a lot speaking of the dead, but there is also the consequences on health. Apparently many people which survived the infection became extremly weak. And for every infection, there is also the problem of sterility that could be caused by a severe infection.
Apparently, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan did better than the west, and in the case of South Korea despite starting from a terrific situation.

In some italian hospitals, they didn't treated people above 60 because of the lack of material.
If you're speaking french, maybe you've heard of the theories of Pablo Servigne, Aurélien Barreau or Vincint Mignerot about the risks of a global collapse of civilization.

 

The newest report is that Beijing documented the first case November 17th, and knew the virus was spreading exponentially. They didn't shut down Wuhan for over 60 days, and that was after many Chinese had travelled from all over the globe for the Spring Festival in January.

Poor Italy has for years had Chinese-owned sweat shops, sewing fashion clothing and designer handbags staffed by legal and illegal Chinese immigrants.

The first clusters outside of China were locations with a high percentage of legal and illegal Chinese. Now, of course, the virus is just about everywhere.

 

We are lucky this outbreak isn't something dramatically more serious, which it well could have been. It should be a "wake up call", but doubtless won't be. Learning seems so difficult for our race sometimes.

 

The U.S. is taking action. The federal government is passing recommendations along to state governors who are informing counties and city mayors. Practically every city in the U.S. right now is under some form of restriction.

My city just banned groupings of 10 or more people, plus shut down any public place which can hold more people that that, except grocery stores and people are allowed to work in offices if they can social-distance. That's happening across the county.

 

I don't know, I think this will change how the world and society function for a long time.

 

Thanks for the update. I am pleased to see that action is being taken. (I live in France, but I have family stateside.)

This IS a life-or-death situation. Which cannot and thus must not be treated lightly. LIke Donald Dork first intimated. (Is he still munching popcorn in bed whilst watching his favorite far-right channel - the One America News Network ?)

France and most of Europe are now on lock-down. No cars, nowhere. No people, nowhere. Everybody is at home and locked in.

As for China, the plague maybe arrested there. I can't see how they can escape the blame for what has happened. But, there are not that many new victims - according to today's news here in France ...

 

I have read only summaries of the work of two that you mention.

I am not keen on (what I think) are unrealistic outcomes. One might not have called it a "global civilisation" - afterall, the earliest fossils of human-beings having been recently found are supposedly 200K years old.

Still, the economics of what is happening are now much more advanced than they ever were. That is, when Demand sinks, it is not just localized any more. The lack of Demand cascades elsewhere and can dominate entire parts of the world-economy.

Which gives rise to the notion of a World Economy. The problem is that the second-largest of them happens also to be still Communist.

I wonder if China is not destined to have soon a second Tiananmen Square Protest - sooner or later that egg has to crack-open ...

 

No one was prepared because all healthcare services, private or public, are already at 100% capacity without any pandemic. It doesn't make any econoomical sense to have unused beds or personal paid for nothing. This is the same "just-in-time" model applied to every services or industry.