When you say "15% hospitalization" are you suggesting that 15% of the population will be hospitalized?

There are some estimates that 15% of conavirus cases end up needing to go to the hospital. So, 15% of however many Italians catch it might end up needing medical services, plus the standard baseline that already need it. That's going to be pretty tough for the system to handle.

Doesn't that depend entirely on how many Italians end up catching it?

It does, but in an average flu season, how many escape unscathed? Now factor in that the transmission rates may be significantly higher for this virus (R0 below 2 versus anywhere from 1.4-6.6).

I notice a lot of downvoting without responses here. It smacks of denial and motivated reasoning. Usually on HN, when you get down-voted, you get a counter-argument. I think it speaks volumes when there's none.

If the original commenter here is suggesting that 15% of Italy's population will be hospitalized...that is its own counter-argument. That's pretty clearly not going to happen.

> That's pretty clearly not going to happen.

Sure, if you mean that the capacity isn't there.

And sure, if you mean it won't be 15% of the total, but rather 15% of the 70% of the population who catch it, then ok.

If you mean that that level of care isn't required for the 15% of severe cases which was seen in the studies, then you'll have to refute the studies of people who know more about this than you, with some better arguments than that.

http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9...

>of the 70% of the population who catch it,

Sorry, but where in gods name is this number coming from? There are currently a few hundred cases documented in Italy,rate of new coronavirus cases worldwide has slowed down to about 500-1000 per day.

For reference, the US has about 1 million hospital visits for pneumonia every year. I couldn't find numbers for Italy but I assume it's in the ballpark of 200k relatively speaking. So a few hundred extra cases or even a few thousand aren't going to push the system anywhere.

Not sure about the 70% but 60%-80% was talked about a few days ago: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/11/coronavirus-ex...

> Usually on HN, when you get down-voted, you get a counter-argument.

Not really.