Italy's suffering offers potential terrifying coronavirus preview for US

[Mileage Psycho]

Just look at Italy and do the math, we should just bite the bullet and lock it down.

Quote

 

Italy's suffering offers potential terrifying coronavirus preview for US

A tsunami of coronavirus victims that is overwhelming health systems in Italy offers a frightening preview of what could lie ahead for the United States as case counts grow and hospitals run out of space and equipment to treat those with severe symptoms.

The strain is so great in Italy that the nation's doctors have begun rationing care, making heart-wrenching decisions about who gets treatment and who is left to die. Obituary pages in local newspapers are running dozens of pages. Piles of coffins are stacked in parking lots.

"Too many for [the] crematory to burn," Raffaele De Francesco, a microbiologist at the University of Milan, said in an email.

Just over a month after the hardest-hit Lombardy region confirmed its first case of the coronavirus, almost 64,000 Italians have been diagnosed with COVID-19 - or about 1 percent of the total population in a nation of 60 million. Of those, 6,077 have died, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

That case fatality rate, nearly 10 percent, though inflated because the true number of infected victims is not known, is the highest reported in the world. It is a direct result of a health system stretched far beyond its capacity, and the need to deny care to the elderly and those who are already sick.

The Italian outbreak started sometime in February, even before a man in Lombardy was diagnosed with COVID-19. That man did not have any recent history of traveling abroad, and he had not had contact with Italy's first cases of the virus, two Chinese tourists in Rome.

But he had come into contact with hundreds of others in the days before he fell ill. Within 24 hours, Italy had recorded three dozen cases.

"Basically, overnight they went from three cases to dozens and hundreds," said Cristiana Salvi, a World Health Organization spokeswoman who deployed to her native country in the first days of the outbreak. "They basically had a very narrow window for containment."

Italy's epidemic was especially severe because of the nation's aging population. As of March 15, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported the median COVID-19 victim was 64 years old, though the youngest person who had died was in their 30s.

Two and a half weeks after the initial outbreak, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte ordered a lockdown in the northern provinces hardest hit by the disease, followed by a national lockdown a day later.

Even under the lockdown, case counts continued to balloon. Only in recent days has the number of new cases begun to slow, a function of a virus that can incubate for up to two weeks before someone shows symptoms. Italy has reported fewer new cases in both of the last two days, an indicator that officials are watching with cautious optimism.

"We are starting now to see some effects of [the lockdown], but of course it takes more time to see a big decline," Salvi said. "We cannot drop the guard."

The new cases in the last few days still number in the thousands, a stark reminder that an out-of-control epidemic can take weeks to corral.

A tsunami of coronavirus victims that is overwhelming health systems in Italy offers a frightening preview of what could lie ahead for the United States as case counts grow and hospitals run out of space and equipment to treat those with severe symptoms.

© Getty Images Italy's suffering offers potential terrifying coronavirus preview for US

The strain is so great in Italy that the nation's doctors have begun rationing care, making heart-wrenching decisions about who gets treatment and who is left to die. Obituary pages in local newspapers are running dozens of pages. Piles of coffins are stacked in parking lots.

"Too many for [the] crematory to burn," Raffaele De Francesco, a microbiologist at the University of Milan, said in an email.

Just over a month after the hardest-hit Lombardy region confirmed its first case of the coronavirus, almost 64,000 Italians have been diagnosed with COVID-19 - or about 1 percent of the total population in a nation of 60 million. Of those, 6,077 have died, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

That case fatality rate, nearly 10 percent, though inflated because the true number of infected victims is not known, is the highest reported in the world. It is a direct result of a health system stretched far beyond its capacity, and the need to deny care to the elderly and those who are already sick.

The Italian outbreak started sometime in February, even before a man in Lombardy was diagnosed with COVID-19. That man did not have any recent history of traveling abroad, and he had not had contact with Italy's first cases of the virus, two Chinese tourists in Rome.

But he had come into contact with hundreds of others in the days before he fell ill. Within 24 hours, Italy had recorded three dozen cases.

"Basically, overnight they went from three cases to dozens and hundreds," said Cristiana Salvi, a World Health Organization spokeswoman who deployed to her native country in the first days of the outbreak. "They basically had a very narrow window for containment."

Italy's epidemic was especially severe because of the nation's aging population. As of March 15, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported the median COVID-19 victim was 64 years old, though the youngest person who had died was in their 30s.

Two and a half weeks after the initial outbreak, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte ordered a lockdown in the northern provinces hardest hit by the disease, followed by a national lockdown a day later.

Even under the lockdown, case counts continued to balloon. Only in recent days has the number of new cases begun to slow, a function of a virus that can incubate for up to two weeks before someone shows symptoms. Italy has reported fewer new cases in both of the last two days, an indicator that officials are watching with cautious optimism.

"We are starting now to see some effects of [the lockdown], but of course it takes more time to see a big decline," Salvi said. "We cannot drop the guard."

The new cases in the last few days still number in the thousands, a stark reminder that an out-of-control epidemic can take weeks to corral.

Health officials in the United States and around the world are now warning that what has happened in Italy is just a preview of what may happen here, as the number of cases in America balloon out of control.

"In some countries the situation will get worse before it gets better," Maria Van Kerkhove, head of emerging diseases and zoonosis at the World Health Organization (WHO), told reporters on Monday. The WHO has warned that the United States is at risk of becoming the next epicenter of the sprawling pandemic.

Governors of at least 17 states have ordered residents to stay at home, but President Trump has not issued a similar dictum to the Italian lockdown. Trump on Tuesday signaled for a second day in a row that that the United States will have to open for business, a signal he wants to relax policies that have kept people at home. Trump said shutting the nation's economy for months would cost even more lives.

But the prospect of relaxing social distancing rules and reopening parts of the economy would almost certainly lead to a coronavirus case curve that would grow, rather than flatten.

Trump's comments, and scenes like packed spring break beaches and bustling farmer's markets, reflect a broader concern in the public health community - that Americans have yet to grasp just how serious the pandemic has become.

"Somehow people are not processing the gravity of the situation, and that is what happened in Italy," said Janet Baseman, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington.

In Italy, Salvi said Conte's government had quickly heeded the advice of public health experts.

"The government, the decisionmakers are really listening to the scientists. The measures they are putting in place are responding to scientific evidence," Salvi said.

Even then, the grim statistics in Italy are directly analogous to what is already happening in the United States, and what the nation's next few weeks and months could look like.

America is actually adding cases at a faster pace than Italy did in the first days of its outbreak: It took 16 days for the number of cases in America to grow from 100 to 10,000, a day faster than Italy recorded the same growth. As that growth continues, hospital systems in the United States will become overwhelmed, potentially more quickly than in Italy: Italy has more hospital beds per capita, at 3.2 per thousand residents, than the United States, which has 2.8 beds per thousand, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. World Bank statistics show Italy also has more health care workers per capita than the United States.

The coronavirus is spreading unevenly throughout the United States, as it did in Italy. What began as an epidemic in the Seattle area has now become a crisis in the New York City metropolitan area, where officials say the attack rate - or the percentage of the population who have contracted the disease - has grown to about one in a thousand people.

That figure will rise in the coming days and weeks, even without strict interventions, because of the incubation period between when someone is infected and when they begin to show symptoms. But drastic steps can still help bend the curve lower, experts said.

Asked what lessons Americans should take from Italians, De Francesco, the Italian microbiologist, was blunt.

"Lockdown, lockdown, lockdown," he wrote. "Totally. Everywhere. The sooner the better."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/italys-suffering-offers-potential-terrifying-coronavirus-preview-for-us/ar-BB11EFnC#image=BBZaM5o|3

 

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[f7ben]

 But derp....the average age of citizens in Italy is 107 derp....and they all smoke 2 cartons of cigs a day derp!!   DEERRRRRRP

[Anler]

2 minutes ago, f7ben said:

 But derp....the average age of citizens in Italy is 107 derp....and they all smoke 2 cartons of cigs a day derp!!   DEERRRRRRP

And they are dying because of their socialist medicine deeerpppp

[Snake]

The Hill.....

 

 

[spin_dry]

 

[spin_dry]

32 minutes ago, Snake said:

The Hill.....

 

 

That’s funny  

[Big Crappie]

Quote

Two and a half weeks after the initial outbreak, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte ordered a lockdown in the northern provinces hardest hit by the disease, followed by a national lockdown a day later.

In hindsight this was a huge mistake.

[Mileage Psycho]

16 minutes ago, spin_dry said:

 

I have an appointment to see an orthopaedic at 10:00 this morning to address this pinched nerve I got two weeks ago that besides the pain and discomfort is fucking with the strength and dexterity in my left hand and arm. I'm debating whether to go or not.

[spin_dry]

4 minutes ago, Mileage Psycho said:

I have an appointment to see an orthopaedic at 10:00 this morning to address this pinched nerve I got two weeks ago that besides the pain and discomfort is fucking with the strength and dexterity in my left hand and arm. I'm debating whether to go or not.

I had a consult with a Chicago surgeon for hip resurfacing surgery. We weighed the risks. I decided to put it off until this thing blows ever. Part of the reason is that I’ve never had surgery and there’s no clue how I’ll react. The cv is simply an added risk that made it an easy choice to wait. 

[steve from amherst]

10 minutes ago, Mileage Psycho said:

I have an appointment to see an orthopaedic at 10:00 this morning to address this pinched nerve I got two weeks ago that besides the pain and discomfort is fucking with the strength and dexterity in my left hand and arm. I'm debating whether to go or not.

Put it off.

[Mainecat]

I had 2  appointments cancelled in the last week. Docs did phone instead so you can bill for it...lol

[Mileage Psycho]

2 hours ago, spin_dry said:

I had a consult with a Chicago surgeon for hip resurfacing surgery. We weighed the risks. I decided to put it off until this thing blows ever. Part of the reason is that I’ve never had surgery and there’s no clue how I’ll react. The cv is simply an added risk that made it an easy choice to wait. 

This nerve has been fucking with me since the 16th, my regular back ortho has dissapeared and I had an appointment last Wednesday with a new doc but the office was closed for a deep cleaning......Anyhow I saw a PT last Wednesday and she did an eval, I tried setting up a telemed but since I never saw the new doc that's a no go, doing a telemed with my MD at 10:30 in hopes of getting an anti-inflammatory with some snort.

2 hours ago, steve from amherst said:

Put it off.

I did

1 hour ago, Mainecat said:

I had 2  appointments cancelled in the last week. Docs did phone instead so you can bill for it...lol

It's a new world MC  

[Anler]

6 minutes ago, Mileage Psycho said:

This nerve has been fucking with me since the 16th, my regular back ortho has dissapeared and I had an appointment last Wednesday with a new doc but the office was closed for a deep cleaning......Anyhow I saw a PT last Wednesday and she did an eval, I tried setting up a telemed but since I never saw the new doc that's a no go, doing a telemed with my MD at 10:30 in hopes of getting an anti-inflammatory with some snort.

I did

It's a new world MC  

Do you have an inversion table? 

[Mileage Psycho]

1 minute ago, Anler said:

Do you have an inversion table? 

No, I although I should ...........

[Anler]

2 minutes ago, Mileage Psycho said:

No, I although I should ...........

Yeah they help with stuff like that. I bought one last year

[Dieselgeek]

2 hours ago, spin_dry said:

I had a consult with a Chicago surgeon for hip resurfacing surgery. We weighed the risks. I decided to put it off until this thing blows ever. Part of the reason is that I’ve never had surgery and there’s no clue how I’ll react. The cv is simply an added risk that made it an easy choice to wait. 

Once you've had a few surgeries, it's like a day going to work. Just another day! 

[frenchy]

4 hours ago, f7ben said:

 But derp....the average age of citizens in Italy is 107 derp....and they all smoke 2 cartons of cigs a day derp!!   DEERRRRRRP

don't forget they all french kiss on the streets and live stacked together like cordwood too. 

Edited March 25, 2020 by frenchy

[frenchy]

2 hours ago, Mainecat said:

I had 2  appointments cancelled in the last week. Docs did phone instead so you can bill for it...lol

dementia and incontinence? 

[spin_dry]

1 hour ago, Mileage Psycho said:

No, I although I should ...........

Get yourself one. 

[ford_428cj]

Patient Infected With Two Strains of COVID-19 In Iceland

Published March 24, 2020

Words by

Poppy Askham

Photo by

Adobe Stock

It’s been confirmed that an individual who tested positive for COVID-19 in Iceland has been infected by two strains of the virus simultaneously. The second strain is a mutation of the original novel coronavirus. It is thought that this could be the first recorded dual infection case of this kind.

Speaking to RÚV news yesterday, deCODE CEO, Kári Stefánsson confirmed the unusual infection. It is thought the mutated second strain could be more malicious or infectious because people infected by the dual-strain patient were only found to have the second strain. If this is the case, the virus could be mutating to become more infectious over time. However, Kári was unable to confirm this and suggested it could be a coincidence.

[Rod]

God damn it alt lefters are fucking dumb

[f7ben]

7 minutes ago, ACE said:

God damn it alt lefters are fucking dumb

You’re a retard....you prove it daily

[washedupmxer]

1 hour ago, ACE said:

God damn it alt lefters are fucking dumb

I'm not sure I've seen retardation levels this high ever before. This place is like a retardation breeding ground.  I come here everyday to be amazed by stupidity and then leave

[Redheaded Stepchild]

Just now, washedupmxer said:

I'm not sure I've seen retardation levels this high ever before. This place is like a retardation breeding ground.  I come here everyday to be amazed by stupidity and then leave

Well to be fair you give us a good glimpse of it yourself.

[Snake]

2 minutes ago, washedupmxer said:

I'm not sure I've seen retardation levels this high ever before. This place is like a retardation breeding ground.  I come here everyday to be amazed by stupidity and then leave

Often time the retardness goes with you.