
Ask HN: What happened in Italy with Covid-19? - quietthrow
Italy now has the highest number of Covid-19 deaths after China. This is worse than Iran.  So what happened here that is so bad compared to continental Europe. Or put it another way what didn’t happen in Italy and is happening else where and hence Italy situation is so bad?<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.arcgis.com&#x2F;apps&#x2F;opsdashboard&#x2F;index.html#&#x2F;bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
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ContigentVal
Italy now has the highest number of Covid-19 infections in the world, if you
believe that China didn't underreport deaths. They claim an impossible death
rate, given that their hospitals are still accepting almost all serious
patients. (This could change in a day or two.)

Their total cases numbers are probably bonkers, and have been from the very
start. They were very unlucky with the early spread, with (I guess) lots of
asymptomatic cases.

Other Western countries had more time to prepare, and had better knowledge
about where the cases were spreading. This will change, unfortunately.

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MarcoSanto
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hosp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hospital_beds)

The board of medical doctors has issued a therapeutic guideline that says not
to ventilate over the age of 60, or better "to allocate ICU resources and
personnel based on estimates life expectancy", as is an accepted ethical
behaviour in cases of insufficient resources.

People 60 and older are sedated and practically euthanised if not enough ICU
beds are available.

That's why you probably see other countries (namely UK and US) react
differently.

Unfortunately it's difficult to asses the validity of the statistical
reporting, even assuming good faith on the side of all parties, statistics
protocols are easy to overlook/get-wrong in medical emergencies.

Use translated CC to hear it from this guy:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lnxGwptaQc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lnxGwptaQc)
We have entertainers put out PSA messages to educate the population to leave
enough beds free to accept critical patients

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MarcoSanto
[https://left.it/2020/03/13/covid_19-open-letter-from-
italy-t...](https://left.it/2020/03/13/covid_19-open-letter-from-italy-to-the-
international-scientific-community/)

