
Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics - joe_the_user
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-response-specialre/italy-and-south-korea-virus-outbreaks-reveal-disparity-in-deaths-and-tactics-idUSKBN20Z27P
======
tomerico
Italy has an older population, hence more susceptible to deaths and spreading
of the virus:

\- Average age of death due to Coronavirus in Italy is 82 [1]

\- In Italy, 3.65% of the population is 80 or older [2].

\- In Korea, 1.75% of the population is 80 or older [3]

[1]
[https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/covid-19...](https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/covid-19-infografica_eng.pdf)

[2]
[https://www.populationpyramid.net/italy/2019/](https://www.populationpyramid.net/italy/2019/)

[3] [https://www.populationpyramid.net/republic-of-
korea/2019/](https://www.populationpyramid.net/republic-of-korea/2019/)

~~~
T-A
3.65% / 1.75% ~ 2.09, so the difference in age profile might explain a factor
2 in the mortality ratio of Italy vs South Korea.

The actual ratio is currently 7.9: 827 out of 12462 cases in Italy (6.6%), 66
out of 7869 cases in South Korea (0.84%).

~~~
Retric
A large number of South Korea infections are even younger due to how it
spread.

Italy: Above 80: 1,532 (18.4)% vs age 20-29: 296 (0.0)%

South Korea: Above 80: 243 (3.1)% age 20-29: 2,261 (28.7)%

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_South_Korea)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_I...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Italy)

Of note, neither country has had anyone under 30 die. Deaths in the 80+ age
range are 8.23% in South Korea and 13.2% in Italy.

PS: South Korea saw 2 deaths under age 50 where Italy has seen 1. So this age
is by far the largest factor.

~~~
nostromo
I'm not sure how the media should report on deaths over 80, or even over 90.

It's not that old people aren't worthy of protection, but when you're 85 in
the US you have a 10% chance of dying in the next year for any and all
reasons.

So saying this disease kills 15% (for example) of 80+ year olds without
context sounds horrific, but contextualized in the actual risks of just being
very old to begin with, sounds much less scary.

If Italy, for example, were to report on the number of fatal infections in
people younger than the natural life expectancy, the fatality rate would drop
in half.

~~~
paulryanrogers
Fatality numbers won't reflect those who developed permanent lung damage or
had to go into intensive care.

Best not to suggest anything that might down play the seriousness considering
how infectious this virus is. (Otherwise it may encourage risky behavior.)

~~~
toolz
but what about the risks of over-selling this disease? Look at Italy for
example. I've read self-reports from healthcare workers claiming 200% hospital
capacity. I can only image the needless death resulting from such panic.

Mind you that isn't covid 19 putting them over-capacity. In the worst hit
region in Italy (Lombardy) confirmed covid 19 cases represent enough cases to
take up less than 10% of their hospital beds. So it seems incredibly unlikely
anything but panic is to blame for such absurdly high over capacity.

~~~
danso
> _In the worst hit region in Italy (Lombardy) confirmed covid 19 cases
> represent enough cases to take up less than 10% of their hospital beds._

Do you have a source for this comment? This WaPo story from 6 hours ago says
differently:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/italy-
coronaviru...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/italy-coronavirus-
patients-lombardy-
hospitals/2020/03/12/36041dc6-63ce-11ea-8a8e-5c5336b32760_story.html)

> _Giulio Gallera, Lombardy’s health chief, said Thursday that the region
> would reach its capacity in “five, six or seven days,” even if it tried to
> add more beds in hospital “cellars.” In an interview with Italy’s La7
> channel, Gallera described the possibility of adding 500 intensive-care beds
> at Milan’s expo center, the kind of rapidly assembled zone that China
> created in the hard-hit Wuhan area._

~~~
toolz
lombardy has 7280 confirmed cases [1] lombary has a population of 10MM
(wikipedia) italy has 3.18 hospital beds per 1000 [2]

the math for that adds up to 31,800 hospital beds 7280 confirmed cases is 22%
- so my sources were off or wiki is wrong as originally I recall reading
lombardy has a 16MM population.

I will say that your article claims they haven't run out of ICU beds yet but
that number is surprisingly high for ICU needs to cover covid 19. The article
implies 600 ICU cases from covid 19 - that's over 12% ICU from confirmed covid
19 cases, which is more than twice what china reported.

It's also very surprising how few ICU beds they have allocated towards ICU....

The USA has something like 14% of hospital beds as ICU beds [3] but Italy
appears to only have have less than 3% of their beds available for covid 19
ICU

[1] [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1099375/coronavirus-
case...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1099375/coronavirus-cases-by-
region-in-italy/) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hosp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hospital_beds)
[3] [https://www.sccm.org/Communications/Critical-Care-
Statistics](https://www.sccm.org/Communications/Critical-Care-Statistics)

~~~
mlinsey
Most hospitals don't have all that much slack in bed capacity; especially at
the tail end of flu season most of those beds are already filled. The
hospitals may be extrapolating the growth rate of the disease and realizing
how soon they will have problems. Or given the nature of the outbreak it could
be that even within Lombardy there are areas with much higher concentrations
of cases, like there are more cases, inc. per capita, in Wuhan than other
cities in Hubei.

What's not plausible is ICU beds being taken up by people who don't have the
disease (maybe miild-to-moderate flus or bad colds) and are just panicking.
Emergency room lines, sure. Test shortages, absolutely. But hospitals will not
put someone who's just scared and doesn't even need to be admitted at all into
the ICU.

~~~
oarsinsync
> Most hospitals don't have all that much slack in bed capacity; especially at
> the tail end of flu season

Remember that there's a difference between hospital beds and ICU beds.

In the UK, we maintain 80% utilisation of our ICU beds all year round[0], with
very little change in the number of beds available in real number terms. We
have ~4100 total ICU beds, which can be expanded to ~5000 if all operating
theatres, etc are shut down and used as ICU equivalent instead.

While getting past flu season will help the total number of beds, it does
nothing for the ICU.

This is the other reason why it's increasingly important to
[https://www.FlattenThesCurve.com](https://www.FlattenThesCurve.com) and
employ social distancing techniques. The rate of patients being admitted into
ICUs needs to be slowed as much as possible. Once we're out of capacity, every
additional patient has a much higher probability of dying than the overall
fatality statistics indicate.

[0] [https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-
content/uploads/sit...](https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-
content/uploads/sites/2/2020/03/MSitRep-SPN-v2.1-Ja7T2.pdf)

~~~
Heliosmaster
There's a typo, it's
[https://www.flattenthecurve.com/](https://www.flattenthecurve.com/)

------
rb808
> South Korea has since reported 67 deaths out of nearly 8,000 confirmed
> cases, after testing more than 222,000 people. In contrast, Italy has had
> 1,016 deaths and identified more than 15,000 cases after carrying out more
> than 73,000 tests on an unspecified number of people.

Surely the testing is a huge factor. Test more people you'll find more people
infected, so the fatality rate will get smaller. If you're like the US and
test very few you get the huge fatality rates we saw in Washington.

If you could quickly and accurately test everyone in the country today we
would know how to isolate and the whole thing would be over very soon. Not
having a reliable test makes this whole problem as bad as it is.

~~~
js2
Singapore is probably doing as best as any country could hope to.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/12/8145224...](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/12/814522489/singapore-
wins-praise-for-its-covid-19-strategy-the-u-s-does-not)

Also, as an American, I'm embarrassed by my country's response and by how my
president addresses the nation. PM Lee shows how you talk to your country:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mYs1Uyx3c8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mYs1Uyx3c8)

His original address five weeks prior:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dExr76Wckr8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dExr76Wckr8)

~~~
AlchemistCamp
Singapore has been competent, but Taiwan's response has been more impressive.

It's very close to the hot zone, millions of people travel to and from
mainland China every year, it has roughly the population of Australia living
on 10% of the land Japan has, the WHO refuses any cooperation, and yet there
have been under 50 cases and no local transmission.

Not only that, but as a democratic state, Taiwan's control measures have been
remarkably measured.

I'd credit two factors:

1) Imposing travel limits three weeks before China even admitted there was an
outbreak. After SARS, the TW government had a plan for this epidemic and a
healthy skepticism for both official news and the WHO.

2) Taiwan has a relatively high trust society. People generally trust the
local CDC and make a genuine effort to take preventative measures, even those
primarily for the safety of others. A phone alert is generally all that's
needed as a quarantine reminder for those exposed.

~~~
billfruit
China reported Covid19 to WHO on 31 Dec 2019, do you say that travel curbs
were put in Taiwan in early December?

~~~
robocat
Taiwan started acting on 31st Dec.
[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689)

Taiwan has had a spectacular response to the virus - that is the gold standard
that Italy (or Korea) should be compared against.

~~~
toyg
They were hit badly by SARS and learnt a lot of valuable lessons. This is our
European SARS moment, hopefully.

------
PeterStuer
There's sooooo many lies being propagated by different governments on the true
state of things. This afternoon I watched a live broadcast of parliament in
which the minister of health claimed Belgium was doing far more extensive
testing than any other country on earth. This at a time when standing
instructions to medical personnel are to _only_ test people that are already
admitted to hospital because of severe pulmonary conditions. It is impossible
to get a test under any other circumstance as all test request have to follow
a central approvement procedure and non are approved barring these conditions.

These outright lies are propagated by the political parties that are far more
concerned with 'the economy' than with any public health. It is really
saddening that his is going on.

~~~
selimthegrim
The surgeon general just gave a press conference in Baton Rouge with the
governor of Louisiana saying we should only test people (or prioritize testing
of) people with symptoms. This when we know asymptomatic people can be
contagious for days.

The Port of New Orleans is testing embarking cruise ship passengers but not
disembarking (!) ones. This when we have community spread in the parish
already and have gone from 1 to 6 to 11 cases this week alone.

~~~
2rsf
> we know asymptomatic people can be contagious for days

Although it is technically correct, this is the least contagious way. AFAIK
most sick people were near sick persons for a considerable amount of time.

[0]
[https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/kenkou_iryo...](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/kenkou_iryou/dengue_fever_qa_00014.htmlhttps://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/kenkou_iryou/dengue_fever_qa_00014.html)

~~~
selimthegrim
Your link is giving a 404. (It looks like it's pasted in twice.) And with
regard to the cruise ships, see Question 13 of your linked FAQ.

It seems false positives are a real thing [1] but can we afford even one
asymptomatic infected individual that might be a super spreader? In shifting
away from containment are we just accepting these?

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22566923](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22566923)

~~~
harrier
His link had the url twice concatenated. If you remove that part then it works
[1]. Here is a google translation of the relevant section:

> Although the possibility of transmission from an asymptomatic person has
> been reported
> （[https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2001468）](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2001468）),
> little is known on how Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spreads from
> person to person. Generally speaking, with most respiratory viruses, people
> are thought to be most contagious when they are most symptomatic.
> [https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/transmission...](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/transmission.html)

That CDC link [2] states that:

> People are thought to be most contagious when they are most symptomatic (the
> sickest). Some spread might be possible before people show symptoms; there
> have been reports of this occurring with this new coronavirus, but this is
> not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.

[1]
[https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/kenkou_iryo...](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/kenkou_iryou/dengue_fever_qa_00014.html#Q2)

[2]
[https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/transmission...](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/transmission.html)

~~~
selimthegrim
As to my second point, the Japanese are not letting people disembark cruise
ships willy-nilly without being tested as per that link

------
fab1an
Italy got caught by surprise - they only found out that they had cases when a
38 year old (!) walked into an ER with advanced symptoms. Given that this age
bracket is not commonly affected by these harsher symptoms it is clear that
they had long ongoing community transmission which has now culminated in the
current catastrophe.

Germany is doing a bit better in this respect, it took them 1000 cases to
'get' the first death, showing that they have caught it very very early, due
to their decentralized testiing system. That said, NPI must be ramped up
significantly...

The US is maybe the most troublesome target for this virus in the developed
world. A healthcare system that works well for few rich cancer patients is the
opposite of what you want for a disease like COVID19.

~~~
bonzini
Germany is counting deaths differently. If you have heart issues and you die
due to a heart attack you're not counted as a COVID death. In Italy you are as
long as you test positive.

~~~
qayxc
> If you have heart issues and you die due to a heart attack you're not
> counted as a COVID death

That doesn't seem to be the case - a man from Baden-Württemberg, who died
earlier this month, was only tested positive AFTER he was already dead for a
few days and counted towards the statistic.

This means your general statement cannot be true.

------
Diederich
I noticed something else that might be an interesting correlation: available
"acute" hospital beds.

I don't have time to do the full correlation, but here's the data:

[https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=30183](https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=30183)

Select "Curative (acute) care beds"

Scroll down to the Per 1000 population.

Italy: 2.62

Korea (assuming South): 7.14

The list of countries in that table is a good bit shorter than the countries
fighting Covid-19, but I think it might be illuminating.

Can someone draw that up? Compare, perhaps, current death rate by country with
available "Curative (acute) care beds" per 1000?

~~~
esistgut
Italy has not yet reached the limit for ICU beds, whatever it is. People dying
here is still within capacity, for now.

~~~
TeMPOraL
That disagrees with all the information that has been coming out of Italy for
the last _three days_.

Perhaps because hospitals there (and in general) are always running at 80-100%
capacity, so it didn't take much for the extra COVID-19 cases to max them out.

~~~
Cantbekhan
Indeed most EU ICU services are already usually running at around 90% with the
usual issues (including the Flu). And please also do consider that most of
theses cases are within the Lombardy region and that most ICU patients are
very difficult if not impossible to transfer safely to other regions. While
the ICU beds are limited, the amount of ambulances equipped with ICU equipment
is probably even smaller (and will also require an ICU nurse+doctor on board
during the transfer).

~~~
TeMPOraL
And then there is looming material shortage.

For instance, in my home town (Kraków, Poland), hospitals cancelled planned
procedures yesterday - not due to the amount of COVID-19 patients itself
(Poland still has double-digit number of reported cases), but because the
hospitals run out masks, gowns and gloves. Which means that once coronavirus
patients start appearing, things will get really ugly real fast.

------
2019-nCoV
This outbreak is a litmus test for the competence of countries. It's already
shone a bright light on the fragility of global supply lines, cheap travel and
open borders. These are the aspects of life most likely to change after this
is all over.

~~~
marcinzm
>These are the aspects of life most likely to change after this is all over.

People will forget about this in a year and go back to life like it's always
been. Short term convenience trumps everything except short term negative
consequences.

~~~
landryraccoon
No. I remember 9/11, and this feels worse. The world won’t be the same for a
decade. Are you too young to remember when you could just walk straight onto a
plane without being searched? Those days never came back.

~~~
marcinzm
I remember 9/11, saw the second plane hit with my own eyes. Other than
airports and flying being more inconvenient nothing fundamental really changed
as I saw it. People still traveled, people still flew and so on. Now you just
budget an extra hour before a flight.

~~~
neuronic
Geopolitics has seen massive impact since then. For example, the rise of ISIS
is a direct descendant of the Iraq war which is a direct consequence of
corrupt and criminal decision making by the Bush/Cheney admin in response to
9/11.

Debatable if the Arab Spring would have occurred without it, as the Middle
East might have been much more stable.

~~~
marcinzm
Sure but the comment I responded to wasn't about geopolitics but daily life
changes.

~~~
jacobush
Because geopolitics does not change daily life? Damn, you should see some
geopolitics where I live.

------
joe_the_user
It's been making the argument that Korea's aggressive testing has allowed them
greater control over the epidemic.

Of course, there are a variety of other factors at work. Italy is the second
"oldest" country in the world after Japan so Coronavirus infections just would
be more deadly there. Also a lot of the Korean infections were confined to a
single city in Korea (though the Italian infections also had an epicenter).

~~~
magicsmoke
If Italy is the second oldest country in the world after Japan, how do they
have 800 deaths compared to 16 in Japan? Something about those numbers seems
off. Is it because Japan's elderly population tend to live in rural areas
compared to Italy's or something else societally related?

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
meh. I've been married to a Japanese for over 2 decades now, and lived in
Tokyo for many years including when Fukushima happened. I wouldn't trust
Japanese politicians with their reported numbers any more as I'd trust China
or the US.

There is one difference in Japan to Italy that might explain the lower
infection rates: it's socially accepted to wear face masks (not only since
covid but since the 90ies actually!)

~~~
magicsmoke
Even if the numbers aren't reliable, reports of Japanese intensive care units
being overrun aren't easy to hide, but Japanese hospitals don't seem to be
under the same pressure as hospitals in Italy.

Making mask wearing more acceptable might be a cultural adjustment humanity
has to make as we become more urbanized and globalized if it'll help reduce
the severity of disease transmission. Looks like Japan's stumbled onto a very
useful societal adaptation.

~~~
Aeolun
Japan has _a lot_ of intensive care units. I guess it comes with having a
generally older population.

~~~
tooltalk
but not compared to other developed countries (except England):

    
    
              [1] [2]
      Germany 3.7 24.6
      France  3.3 9.3
      England 2.7 3.3
      USA     2.4 20
      Canada  2.4 13.5
      Japan   2.2 4 to 5
    

1\. Ratio of physicians to patients (per 1,000 population)

2\. Number of ICU beds (per 100,000 population)

~~~
zjs
Do you have a source for those numbers? They differ significantly from
[https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=30183](https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=30183),
but perhaps your source is more reliable.

Edit: nevermind, I misunderstood the definition of "Curative care (acute care)
beds in hospitals".

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
Now that you understood it, can you explain what the difference is? It's not
obvious to me either.

------
jancsika
Especially relevant to HN:

> This includes enforcing a law that grants the government wide authority to
> access data: CCTV footage, GPS tracking data from phones and cars, credit
> card transactions, immigration entry information, and other personal details
> of people confirmed to have an infectious disease. The authorities can then
> make some of this public, so anyone who may have been exposed can get
> themselves - or their friends and family members - tested.

~~~
rconti
I wish we developed this kind of capability so that we could opt-in. Wouldn't
it be a hell of a lot better than nothing if 50% of the population chose to
download the app, allow it to access our location and allow us to input
symptoms and status, receive recommendations, then when this is all over,
delete it?

~~~
jotm
Except that last part won't happen.

Like the PATRIOT act, it just keeps being extended.

"For the greater good"

------
enitihas
Just curious, does anybody know how did Japan manage to do so well, inspite of
a very old population.

Also what does HN think is the better place to be right now? A mega city or a
small village?

~~~
yongjik
Japan simply isn't testing enough patients, so I would wait a few weeks before
judging how well they did.

That said, inconceivably they don't have many serious cases. (If the virus was
really spreading exponentially, we'd certainly see a lot more patients, tests
or no tests.) So they must be doing _something_ right. It's just hard to tell
if they could keep it this way.

~~~
taeric
I said it up thread, but curious to get more responses.

My hypothesis is this had already spread like crazy everywhere. Now we just
are seeing the exponential discovery of it.

What marks the places hardest hit with severe cases is the bad air quality.
Which acts as a further agitator on lung related complications.

~~~
aquadrop
Norway has very good air quality and still relatively hard hit.

~~~
taeric
Do you have the numbers handy?

And note, I mean hit hard with high severity cases. Not just cases. My
hypothesis is that it is already everywhere. Most of this exponential growth
is just how fast we can deploy testing.

~~~
cplanas
I don't know about severity, but Norway is the European country with the
highest infection ratio, after Italy and tiny Iceland. As of today:

\- Italy: 1 case per 3.996 inhabitants \- Iceland: 1/4.285 \- Norway: 1/6.710
\- Denmark: 1/9.081 \- Switzerland: 1/10.035 \- Spain: 1/14.831 \- France:
1/23.292 \- Germany: 1/30.160

~~~
taeric
From my searches, they are currently at zero deaths? Low, at any rate.

Feels like this supports my hypothesis. If anyone starts looking, they will
find cases. Only if you have a baseline lung damage rate that is elevated will
you see severe cases.

~~~
troeks
The first death in Norway was yesterday, an elderly person.

I tried looking up some numbers on severe cases, but the Norwegian Institute
of Public Health webpages are currently experiencing some DNS issues.

~~~
taeric
Late responding, but if you find anything, I am still interested!

------
duxup
>Epidemiologists say it is not possible to compare the numbers directly. But
some say the dramatically different outcomes point to an important insight:

Don't compare these numbers....but if we do it anyway...

------
1-6
S. Korea is very interconnected as a society. Technology does have a role but
people are generally receptive of personal information being collected and
used. For example, in order to hand out the proper number of masks, they have
APIs which allows a database to inventory pharmacy mask handouts. In the face
of a crisis, are Koreans forfeiting their privacy or are they trying to curb a
bad situation? Americans would definitely not tolerate any info sharing and
now there are strict laws against information collection.

~~~
swasheck
Yes. They're generally quite compliant and community-oriented as well.

If the health minister says the best way to slow this is to stay inside, then
generally they'll stay inside.

Meanwhile, I have friends who are giving the middle finger to caution and are
heading off on their flights for spring break - all for the privilege of being
carriers.

------
haunter
I'm curious about the cultural differences. Physical contact, kiss on the
cheek, is much more common in Italy than in Korea. That can play a huge
factor.

~~~
1-6
Koreans rarely hold hands in friendship too. Shaking hands, etc. You bow
instead. When you go on a date, you're lucky if you get to hold hands on the
first date. Kissing in public? Unacceptable.

~~~
yongjik
Well, yeah, but go to a restaurant in Korea and everybody thrusts their spoons
and chopsticks into shared side dishes and soup bowls. That must count for
something. :/

~~~
1-6
H.Pylori

------
dirtyid
S.Korea is also effectively an island - water 3 sides + sealed N.Korea border.
I don't think it's useful comparing large interconnected EU countries response
capabilities against Asian Tigers islands (Korea, Singapore, Taiwan) with deep
collectivist cultural roots and large demographics that still remember living
under centralized authoritarian rule. In the case of Singapore and China,
still are.

Italy has too much travel, old demographics and interconnected borders to
respond the way Korea did. And we don't even know if Korea is out of the woods
yet, they got more clusters recently.

~~~
Fnoord
> [...] deep collectivist cultural roots and large demographics that still
> remember living under centralized authoritarian rule. In the case of
> Singapore and China, still are.

From Singapore's Wikipedia page:

> Freedom House ranks Singapore as "partly free" in its Freedom in the World
> report,[137] and The Economist Intelligence Unit ranks Singapore as a
> "flawed democracy", the second best rank of four, in its "Democracy Index"
> [1]

Singapore is a flawed democracy, just like Hong Kong. Its unfair to mention it
in the same breath as China which, according to the mentioned index, _is_
Authoritarian.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index)

~~~
dirtyid
It's a valid comparison in the sense that both Singapore and Chinese
governance structure allows extremely despotic interventions that other
representative forms of governments cannot. The broad point that the countries
that responded effectively so far either have the benefit of authoritarian
mobilization capabilities or still have vast populations that experienced
living under the shadow of authoritarian regimes. I don't think we'll see
similar levels of compliance in the west, on top of actually having very
difficult borders to police.

------
gHosts
Reminder for those in despair...

It is merely enough to make the r0 after containment measures less than 1.

Then the problem will eventually go away.

As someone said, social distancing measures to work must be done when it seems
to be overreacting.

And if they work, it will seem as if we overreacted.

~~~
dsjoerg
Your last line is the super important point, occurred to me today as well. If
we beat this thing with social distancing, idiots will say "See! There was no
reason to panic!"

~~~
Tyrek
and what if it died down due factors other than social distancing? You're
positing an irrefutable claim which is sloppy logic.

~~~
orblivion
Whether it's social distancing or some other factor, the important point here
I think is that it wouldn't have died down on its own. For you to look at the
positive outcome alone and say "see, it wasn't a problem to begin with!" is
just as irrefutable as to say it was the social distancing. So you have to use
understanding of the disease, logic, data from other countries, etc, to come
to your conclusion.

(You ask an annoying, but fair and important question here. We shouldn't lose
our skeptical mind.)

------
xpressvideoz
What's interesting is, many South Koreans still believe the South Korean
government is to blame. Perhaps no people are satisifed by their government?

Usual counterarguments are like these:

1\. The government should have prevented the entry of foreign nationals who
recently visited China. It could buy us some time to develop treatment to the
disease. To this day, no such ban has been imposed.

2\. It should have prohibited masks from being exported in January. Many masks
are suspected to be exported to China, which is believed to have contributed
the scarceness of masks. Thankfully, the exportation is banned now.

3\. The government shifts a little too much responsibility to the cult. In
addition, some people blames Daegu, where the cult made thousands of people
infected, for not handling the situation properly, to prevent the central
government from being blamed.

But after seeing the reactions of other countries, I'm starting to believe
South Korea's actions were actually pretty good, at least relatively. What do
you think?

~~~
maallooc
Counterargument #1, #2 is due to the government's stance towards China. The
government is trying to win back China's (so called) friendship, which was
shattered when the U.S. deployed THAAD there.

South Korea was able to handle this not because the government did good, but
they experienced the MERS outbreak in 2015. Legislative measures to prevent
outbreaks were made then. (plus the lesson of impeachment I guess)

------
starpilot
Korea is doing some robotic testing of the samples:

> Rather than a human mixing the solutions, the samples are instead put into a
> diagnostic machine. Inside the machine, a robot arm pipettes the solution
> and mixes the liquids on a number of tests at once. According to Chun, this
> method takes only four hours to test samples from 94 patients -- four times
> faster than the manual method. It also reduces the risk of human error or
> contamination.

[https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/asia/coronavirus-south-
korea-...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-
testing-intl-hnk/index.html)

~~~
makomk
I think a lot of places are probably using automated testing machines.
Apparently, Public Health England has been operating theirs 24/7 after the
staff go home to keep up with the incoming samples, and that's one reason why
results take a lot more than 4 hours.

------
thinkingemote
Its not tests we should be counting but the number of people seriously sick
and work back from that.

If we know that a percentage of the population will get hospitalised we can
get a good estimate of the actual infected population.

I think that the UK estimates that 10K people have it in the UK for example.
(Number may be wrong, but they have produced an estimate based on the number
of sick who tested positive)

The UK is basically saying, currently, to not expect to be tested, that you
will get it and that they have good knowledge of the levels. They are testing
sick people in hospitals only. They also say that advice is likely to change
each week.

------
timwaagh
I do not know how south korea managed to get as many test kits as they did,
but Italy (and the rest of europe, the us, everyone except south korea and
singapore) simply do not have enough testkits to be able to copy them. So
instead we have to limit the spread by telling people to work from home. Also
Italy found out they were infected much later than south korea. people
estimate the virus had been spreading for weeks when they did.

------
cheriot
It's clear countries that previously suffered from SARs and Swine Flu reacted
to COVID-19 more effectively.

South Korea's outbreak only even got that big because one person was a super
spreader.

[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/31-south-korea-
sudden...](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/31-south-korea-sudden-spike-
coronavirus-cases-200303065953841.html)

------
hokumguru
Anecdotally, my younger sister spent last year as a foreign exchange student
in Modena (northern Italy). She explained that she's not surprised at all
about the impressively quick spread there as nearly everyone she knew and
interacted with greeted each other with two kisses on the cheek! I can't
imagine how difficult it must be to contain a virus with such deep ingrained
cultural norms.

------
ck2
US is pretty much headed for the italian model thanks to almost non-existent
leadership and people unwilling to isolate themselves, feel the right to go
everywhere public while sick and cough/sneeze on everyone

A month from now there are going to be so many people sick, hospitals
overwhelmed and they won't be able to hide the death count anymore.

------
gnicholas
My understanding is that the epicenter in Korea was a church whose audience
skews young, which has affected the mortality rate there. Basically, if you
have a bunch of young people get it, your mortality rate will look lower than
if it spread through an older segment of the population.

------
mister_hn
> They are testing hundreds of thousands of people for infections and tracking
> potential carriers like detectives, using cell phone and satellite
> technology.

No but thanks. I do not want to allow a spy-state that might stay after the
virus is sunset.

Italy doesn't track people, as EU court ruled.

------
stewbrew
It's not just the number of cases that differ due to different testing
regimes. Another difference is that Italy did some post-mortem testing to
identify cases that were wrongly reported as flu etc. but were covid19. I
assume they were included in the number of dead. I don't know if they did the
same in South Korea. Numbers sometimes are difficult to compare.

------
empiricus
Interesting detail in the article: in Korea testing is free if referred by a
doctor, or it is up to 140$ if you just want to be tested.

~~~
Aeolun
Having a fever, and enough money, I’d happily pay $140 for the peace of mind
that comes with that test.

~~~
scholia
Agreed, but unless you can self-isolate, it's not going to last very long.

If you got tested weekly, the costs would soon mount up.....

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I'd hope to not have a fever weekly.

~~~
scholia
You can be infected without having a fever. That's one of the problems with
coronavirus.

Knowing you have the virus won't save you, of course, but you will be able to
react accordingly. That will include trying not to infect anyone else....

------
enitihas
Is there any map of the spread within Italy (or any other country) region
wise, so that one could see how effected different regions are, and how region
wise quarantined have worked.

~~~
roel_v
From a colleague of mine:
[http://www.risklayer.com/blog/Tracking%20Coronavirus%20at%20...](http://www.risklayer.com/blog/Tracking%20Coronavirus%20at%20a%20subnational%20level/)
.

------
techslave
Is there a site that comments on general news, has an educated audience and
debunks spurious or dubious claims? I’d like to read my news through such
portal.

GN or WN (General, World) vs HN

~~~
abraae
The reason HN works (well one reason) is vigorous moderation and a stamping
out of any mode of discourse apart from collegial intellectual discussion. As
a result, we don't see memes or most of the other cheap humour you will find
on e.g Reddit. It also seems to lead inevitably to people whining about
downvotes, and to people whining about people whining about downvotes.

HN is basically ideal for analytical, logic bound folks, and it works because
the topics tends to be things that we can reason about and evaluate using
logic.

HN would not work if the topics were more general. Anything political for
example seems to hardly lend itself to logical discussion. It's impossible to
imagine a @dang enforcing civilised discourse on political discussions.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
HN _sometimes_ has good political discussions - not as often as one would
hope, but more often than (I suspect) just about anywhere else.

The rest of the time, yes, the political discussion turns into a steaming
garbage pile, and deng has to kill it.

------
baxtr
How about Occam’s razor? A much easier explanation be we err on the number of
infected people. Tests are one way to approximate the number of infections.

------
cycop
Interesting theory here is the difference in treatments using Chloroquine &
Zinc Treatment Combo
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7F1cnWup9M&fbclid=IwAR0GU2S...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7F1cnWup9M&fbclid=IwAR0GU2SmuRA2MB2bJzBWJnDFQQbyFZWJMFi8Hj1YwCuRg4_ypXWgJHLV_4Y)

~~~
BubRoss
If it's just numbers, why not post a link to text or type it up instead of
linking to a YouTube video

------
tenant
One tangential snippet that I heard but I don't know if it is true or not is
that in Northern Italy, there are whole garment factories that are staffed and
possibly owned by Chinese purely so that they can be designated as Italian
clothing manufacturers.

~~~
tenant
To my downvoters see here [https://fashionista.com/2013/02/as-more-chinese-
factories-po...](https://fashionista.com/2013/02/as-more-chinese-factories-
pop-up-in-italy-what-does-it-mean-for-the-made-in-italy-label)

------
gcc_programmer
The end of the EU.

------
byteface
Hydroxychloroquine

------
JackRabbitSlim
TL;DR S. Korea traded privacy and freedom for security.

~~~
1-6
You're absolutely right. It's been an ongoing part of day-to-day life for
Koreans. Fortunately, things are pretty transparent and there aren't big
businesses trying to monetize on this information (but this may change in a
flash).

