I am from Italy and every single friend of mine working in healthcare as a doctor has confirmed me that the situation is like the one described here. A friend of mine who is an orthopedist outside lomdardia has also confirmed that they have already asked him to work extra hours and they are already at full capacity, so he's preparing to assist covid patients.

Personally I know a girl whose soon-to-be husband from zero symptoms went to being intubated in 3 days. Luckily for him there were still machines available and he's relatively young and in good shape so they have allocated it to him.

One can surely ignore these reports as they are not provided first hand by doctors. In that case it is sufficient to wait. Soon this situation will be a reality in many more regions/countries so it will be easy to experience this first hand.

So doctors work overtime during situations like this. Surprise. My problem with these reports is that they have a tendency to spread fear, especially the way the are presented. They also undermine trust in public information which only makes it harder to implement measures, in turn making it harder to contain the virus.

Orthopedists being reallocated to treating pneumonias goes a little beyond "working overtime".

But orthopedists can support hospitals elsewhere, freeing up proper resources for for stuff like pneumonia. It is not that because of corona nothing else happens at hospitals.

Also, pretty much in line emergency handling. There is a reason why national emergencies are getting declared. It is the sesantional, alarmist way this stuff is reported that is driving me mad. We should all stay calm and follow guidelines. Instead people buy toilet paper (still just finny) and masks (where gets less funny pretty fast). This kind of reporting, amplified by social media, is a huge part of the problem.

May I suggest you suppress the internal panic that is leading you to deny reality?

Stop projecting, ok? We are following the guidelines. No unnecessary travel, frequent hand washing, keep physical contact like hand shaking down.

We also have quite some stock of necessities at home, but that isn't any different from, say, last November or any other random months before the virus outbreak. Is it serious? Sure it is. Are we at Black Death levels? NO, and nobody says we ever will be there. I am also rather happy with the general way authorities are handling the situation. Sure, it could be improved here and there, especially at the messaging and side and by aligning policies.

Two things to note so: - When you are not old without any preconditions, your personal risk of complications is rather low. And no, I don't care about one guy being interviewed by whom ever. - Even during the Black Death panic didn't help

Refusing to acknowledge a clearly dangerous and unusual situation will ultimately cause much more damage and panic.

We need more fear, not less. Fear will save lives.

Not necessarily. Excess panic can easily create more destruction than the disease ever would have. Look at the hospital that was burned down in Iran because of misinformation about the coronavirus.

Fair point. But you do need a bit of fear. What we have at the moment is complete denial and it's dangerous. Although that does seem to be changing in the last few days.

I know what you mean, that phrase 'from a friend' rings a few alarm bells.

However official statements widely reported in the media are essentally saying similar things:

Antonio Pesenti, head of the Lombardy regional crisis response unit, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper the health system in Lombardy was “a step away from collapse” as intensive care facilities came under growing strain from the new cases.

“We’re now being forced to set up intensive care treatment in corridors, in operating theaters, in recovery rooms. We’ve emptied entire hospital sections to make space for seriously sick people,” he said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy/...

Which is a message much better way to communicate these things. Because now the official statement ment confirms Twitter. The other way round, when Twitter and social media is wrong, people don't believe official statements. Strange enough the wave around cases where officials confirmed social media to prove social media is right and thus officials, in the case they don't want to be true, wrong. Which is very, very dangerous.

Unluckily it is the thruth, here's an interview with a medic on one of Italy's most prominent newspapers (I linked the google translated version)

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=it&tl=en&u=https%3...

There's hundreds of similar recounts on social media at the moment, this is not an isolated case

Social media really seems to be the bane of the 21st century...

I think in this case these comments are really important to show people what is really happening, or you prefer full negationism like most countries are doing?

Yeah right... it's the social media that's the real problem here... not the virus that's killing people...

The rate of death counts confirms it. Im in south korea most of the death is because theres no available hospital bed and they have to stay home and call the ambulance when symptoms get really bad and they die on the way to the hospital.