As the number of coronavirus cases rises, why is Italy being hit so hard?

I thought everyone did. We were finding Chinese people who had recently arrived and testing them for it. All were ok I believe. The problem came later when it was obvious that Italy was in serious trouble and the Government did not give a ban on travel there. This was particularly bad as it meant people who had booked a holiday could not get their money back. Had Boris banned travel there they would have. The US also did not ban travel to Italy or other areas of Europe until Trump acknowledged that this was a Pandemic. It seemed to me Governments only banned Chinese planes due to prejudice.

 

I don't think anyone has all that many ventilators. They are not usually needed in so many numbers at one time. Italy from what I hear has one of the best health services - well the North does and that is where the problems lie. Imagine what it would be like if they did not or in a country where there are people who cannot get health care because they were unable to afford insurance.

 

You're trying to justify the coming fiasco.

China managed to control the spread of the virus by isolating 160 million people.

While the right is dithering over individual liberties or how to get Trump re-elected when the economy collapses, the number of sick people is increasing by 30% a day.

 

You thought wrong.

 

Apparently you heard wrong. Italy’s healthcare system was immediately overwhelmed

 

Now you want to talk about China? What happened to Canada?

 

Well it was strange. Europe and the US banned planes from China after the virus took hold but when it took hold in Italy so much that people were afraid to go their on holiday the Government said 'carry on going to Italy, we are not going to ban travel there' and of course the US did not ban flights either. Why do you think there was a different approach to China and Italy having the virus. Do you think it was nicer coming from Italy? If you did you were very wrong.

 

Trump instituted a travel ban with China in January and Biden said he was fear mongering. Italy didn’t do so until much later.

 

I'll go with what people who know what they are talking about. We shall see how long your health system lasts. That has been the reason why people have been wanting the West to get its act together like countries such as North Korea, Hong Kong and Japan did. Immediately closing borders, massive testing, tracing contacts and with them that malaria medication seems to have worked without problems.

 

Cases in Canada began to exponentially increase only 2 weeks ago. The US started 3 weeks ago.

 

Irrelevent. That is not what we were talking about. We were talking about the reality that when Italy had obvious problems neither the States or Europe banned planes even when people were scared to go there. We were questioning the reason for that. You have just taken it off topic. If you have no answer just give none. I refer you again to post 32

 

You changed the subject from the OP but on your subject change the China travel ban was instituted when China was the epicenter. A month later when Italy through its own malfeasance joined them Trump instituted a travel ban with them.

 

Every school in the country has been closed for two weeks.

All bars, shopping centre, restaurants, hairdresser, parks, cinemas too.

Gatherings of more than 5 people (apart from families) are forbidden.

Only grocery stores and pharmacies are allowed to remain open, with great restrictions.

As a result of these measures, the number of cases increases by only 15% per day. Half as fast as yours.

I anticipate that all Canadians will be quarantined in their homes by next week.

As for you, you've just passed the 82,000 mark. Tomorrow: 100,000.

At the rate things are going, there will be 1 million within 9 days.

If extremely drastic measures are not put in place in the next three days, 10% of the American population will be infected with the coronavirus by the end of April.

 

In Canada, infected cases are increasing at an average rate of 15% per day.

And the curve is slowly flattening.

In the US, it's 30% a day. And the rate is accelerating to match the rate of increase in Italy two weeks ago.

Unless Trump decrees a mandatory general quarantine in 3-4 days, the situation will get totally out of control.

 

You are attempting to comparing number of infected in a very small population with our very big population.

 

I hope Italy will see its peak soon.

 

It’s not flattening per the data I saw on worldometers.

Canada has one third per capita of medical equipment which is much older than the US. The Canadian government spends half as much per capita as US healthcare consumers per capita. Canada rations. Being covered does not mean receiving care.

 

I wish Canadians the best of luck. Their sub standard healthcare system will be quickly overwhelmed when the virus gets going up there and they won’t be able to come to America for treatment like they usually do.

 

As the number of coronavirus cases rises, why is Italy being hit so hard?

There are 2 reasons. 1) there are a lot of smokers in Italy. 2) They decided to go cheap on their health care by letting the Government run it.

 

Italy is a popular tourist destination and got hit a lot harder first. Their government and people did not take this virus seriously, just like we aren't. Also, the virus has an exponential growth pattern, which means even though they have a lot more cases, we are only a few days behind them. In terms of the number of cases, we are only a couple days behind them, in terms of cases per capita, we are a bit more than a week behind them. They have had more time for their cases to mature and have more casualties. We will start seeing thousands of deaths in the next couple weeks, and our healthcare system start to get hit hard.

 

Likewise. The Italians are tragically experiencing the downside of socialized medicine.

 

You seem to be rooting for the virus ????

 

The Dems in Congress won’t even talk with the Republicans. Pelosi is writing her own bill, loaded with socialist (non-virus) pork.

The president and the Republicans can’t do anything on their own.

 

To answer the OP: Many thousands of Chinese nationals work in Northern Italy. They went home in December/January and brought the virus back to Italy when they returned.

 

The number of cases is increasing due to the increasing number of tests. And that means that the mortality is going down because the denominator is increasing.

The mortality rate in the US is now ~ 1%.