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A comment on Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country. Parent comment

Re:Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to... by cm2187 on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @04:26AM (#22533715)
I am struggling to reconcile this story with the numbers of deaths so far vs the number of deaths in any given year. A french infectious disease specialist mentioned that 2017 had been a bad year for infectious respiratory diseases in France, with over 60,000 additional deaths in winter, to the point that it affected life expectancy tables [1]. I don’t remember any mention of hospitals being overwhelmed and doing war-time triage then.

It is possible than one hospital may be overwhelmed, but surely it cannot be representative of hospitals across Italy or even a region.

[1] for french speakers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb8Q1yr2cjo

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to... by gioele on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @05:00AM (#22533886)
> It is possible than one hospital may be overwhelmed, but surely it cannot be representative of hospitals across Italy or even a region.

Sadly, it is representative of hospitals across all northern Italy: https://www.ilpost.it/2020/03/08/pesenti-emergenza-ospedali-... https://www.ilpost.it/2020/03/09/coronavirus-terapia-intensi... ("Affollamento e scelte difficili")

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Re:Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to... by exolymph on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @04:55AM (#22533857)
Flu season is accounted for in normal hospital beds and other capacity planning. A sudden huge surge in need for ICU care is not accounted for.
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Re:Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to... by cm2187 on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @05:37AM (#22534044)
But my point is that surely these additional 60,000 people (and probably many more who recovered) must have gone through ICU.
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Re:Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to... by MLpractitioner on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @06:04AM (#22534156)
Not necessarily, and maybe they didn't need artificial ventilation which is the big deal here.
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Re:Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to... by gpderetta on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @07:16AM (#22534464)
Also, flu didn't go away. covid-19 is in addition to the stress to the health system caused by flu (and all other diseases) and in a very short time.
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Re:Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to... by jonplackett on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @07:40AM (#22534565)
and also, even at the very lowest end, COVID-19's death rate is an order of magnitude more than Flu (0.1% vs 1%)
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Re:Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to... by hef19898 on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @04:54AM (#22533847)
Which shows how damn important context is. Without 100% testing (which I don't think to be necessary) for COVID-19 and comaprative baselines case numbers aren't tellig us anything. Without the proper domain expertise to actually interpret the numbers that is. So whithout that particular domain expertise, epidemilogy and virology, I don't interpret the numbers or build models, rather I believe the experts to make sense out of them.
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Re:Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to... by jonplackett on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @07:38AM (#22534557)
Remember with Flu, the doctors and nurses can't get it, and can't spread it. The danger with this is that all the doctors get sick/quarantined and then no-one gets treated.
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Re:Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to... by tomnj on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @09:12AM (#22535119)
Anyone can get the flu, even those with flu shots
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Re:Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to... by jonplackett on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @10:15AM (#22535602)
They are much less likely to get it after having the flu shot.
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Re:Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to... by tomnj on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @12:41PM (#22536991)
Absolutely, but to say medical staff can’t get or spread flu is false
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Re:Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to... by jonplackett on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @07:20PM (#22541052)
By making that point though, you deliberately making an argument to support the 'it's just like flu' theory of not worrying. Which is a flawed viewpoint.
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Re:Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to... by tomnj on Wednesday March 11, 2020 @12:28AM (#22542991)
I’m 100% not making that point, nor do I believe it
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Re:Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to... by jonplackett on Wednesday March 11, 2020 @05:51AM (#22544444)
Ok. In that case let’s stop arguing and be friends :)
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Re:Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to... by tomnj on Wednesday March 11, 2020 @09:11AM (#22545506)
Thumbs up. Respect
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Re:Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to... by Gibbon1 on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @07:28PM (#22541132)
> I don’t remember any mention of hospitals being overwhelmed and doing war-time triage then.

I remember my nurse friends freaking out in 2017 because they were having trouble dealing with the extra flu cases.

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