Coronavirus by the numbers

American Thinker ^ | March 12 2020 | Richard Baehr

[SmokingJoe]

....................... Now, of course, an authoritarian country has tools at its disposal democracies do not. In any case, China has a total caseload of 80,000 that has been quite steady for a few weeks. China has a population of 1.4 billion. In other words, 1 in every 17,000 Chinese have come down with the disease. Obviously, the incidence rate in the Wuhan area is higher than the national incidence rate in China -- maybe more than 25 times higher. This is also the area where the disease spread rapidly since almost nobody early on knew what they were dealing with.

Yesterday, Germany’s Angela Merkel predicted that 60-70% of that country's population of roughly 85 million would come down with the virus. Really? Based on what? 1 in 17,000 in China but 7 in 10 in Germany? .......................... Why would Russia have only 15 cases? The world’s highest incidence rate could be in Iran, if the official numbers represent just a small fraction of the actual caseload as some non-government sources in the country suggest. Iranian leadership has been decimated by the virus, which has not occurred anywhere else.

[Gideon7]

“South Korea, which has tested a large number of people, has a high incidence rate, but a death rate of only 0.75%, less than 1%. Italy has a similar caseload as South Korea, but a death rate nearly ten times higher. Both are developed countries, with similar populations and population density.”

---

So why the difference... Level of socialization? Work ethic? Population age? Quality of health care? Or...?

[dfwgator]

Italy changes governments every six months, hardly a model for this country.

[BushCountry]

“I am not seeing news reports about hospitals overwhelmed and letting people die because they don’t have enough ventilators, and refusing to even treat many patients.”

Currently the United States has ZERO Serious Cases. Yes, that is right, ZERO. Hopefully hospitals are not overwhelmed.

[Trump Girl Kit Cat]

ALL of the above!!!

[DannyTN]

You might see some draconian measures.

I was surprised to see NY use the National Guard.

The Rats are going to criticise regardless.

And sometimes the criticisms might be valid and we might need to listen. Criticisms of the CDC testing are valid.

But no Democrat candidate would have had the sense to stop China flights, or Europe flights. I can’t believe anyone would want Sleepy Senile Joe leading us during a crisis like this.

I’m not even hearing much challenges to the way Trump is conducting this. Gov Newsom praised Trump the other day. Cuomo criticized the CDC for standing in their way of testing, but I don’t think even he blamed Trump.

[al_c]

That’s why left handed people were shunned in the old days.

Correction: That's why there were no left handed people in the old days. LOL

[dfwgator]

Some Democrats are smart enough to realize they have very little room to talk, given their love of open borders and Communist China.

[SmokingJoe]

We’re still telling people not to wear masks, whereas Chinese officers will slap you repeatedly if you appear in public without a mask.

The masks are a joke. I saw a young lady on the train today with face mask. She was black like me. I kidded her for a bit. I asked her , “do you know the probability of a 30 year old black lady getting infected by coronavirus let alone dying from it?”

[Jeff Chandler]

I don’t have enough toilet paper!!!!

[LouieFisk]

“I am not seeing news reports about hospitals overwhelmed”
—
Have you tried looking at the news for Italy and “hospitals overwhelmed”?
“Italian hospitals overwhelmed by deaths amid coronavirus outbreak”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/12/nation/italian-hospitals-overwhelmed-by-deaths-amid-coronavirus-outbreak

Google works, too -
https://www.google.com/search?q=italy+hospitals+overwhelmed&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjB5IKZy5XoAhVPG80KHc0hC7sQ_AUoAXoECAsQAw

[SmokingJoe]

Italy is quite puzzling. Maybe they need to send some of their health officials to South Korea.

[Williams]

Dudes can I get a straight answer from anyone?
The sentences you are responding to were my questions about Italy, not the United States. So far, I got one sarcastic comment.

Are there credible news stories of Italian hospitals letting people die and not having enough ventilators, doctors getting sick and patients going untreated?

The actual news stories I see are about public events and tourist sites being closed and about the numbers of cases and deaths, but not hospitals in panic or even triage crisis. What’s the answer?

[SmokingJoe]

Italy then allowed 100,000 Chinese workers from Wuhan and Wenzhou to move to Italy to work in these factories, with direct flights between Wuhan and Northern Italy. This continued post outbreak, so is it mere coincidence that Northern Italy is now Europe’s hotspot for Corona Virus?

Aaah!

[DannyTN]

If your 30 years old, you’re not likely to die. But you still don’t want to get infected by this, until we have a better understanding of the permanent lung and heart damage it causes.

Me, I’m a couple of years short of 60 with a couple of co-morbidity factors. I figure my risk of dying if I get is is about 5%. And even if I don’t die, do I want to be on a ventilator in an ICU for 2 to 3 weeks. I think not. I’ve got my supply of TP and I’ve sealed the ark door.

[BluegrassCardinal]

Also encouraging to see Japan get a handle on things, as well as Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

[Stingray51]

Bottom line is we don’t know. The author says he does not know why the situation in northern Italy is so bad relative to other places. He also writes that he does not know the basis for Merkel saying that 70% of Germans will become infected. There is so much uncertainty that dismissing this as no worse than the flu is not how I am looking at it. BTW I thought Hannity was awful last night - the show was literally 100% about politics and unrelentingly dismissive of the virus. Just my opinion FWIW.

[RayChuang88]

Look, if SARS-CoV-2 had caused illness and death in the USA like it happened in Italy, we would have thousands of dead and hundreds of thousands in hospital or in medical isolation. Thanks to cleaner air and a lot less people smoking cigarettes (by historical standards), the rate of people actually getting seriously ill is actually quite low.

[miserare]

Some news articles are saying there are two strains of the virus...one lethal, and the other, not so much.

Italy got the more virulent strain, the early one , straight from Wuhan. Many of the Chinese immigrants who went home for Chinese New Year returned bearing the virus.

They say to look at Germany. Different strain, no deaths yet.

But, who knows?

[Williams]

OK you gave me a serious answer by directing me to news articles. The 1st article is about the procedures for burying dead people, not mentioning treatment of the living at all.
The 2nd article does discuss there not being enough doctors and equipment for everyone to get an adequate level of care, and then goes into an article about guidelines for making decisions on who to treat.
However, neither article actually says that they are letting people die or failing to treat anyone. The 2nd article bases its conclusions on the total number of cases, which would not be the number of people who need intensive care.
People published articles here or rather statements of letters or emails supposedly received from doctors in Italy which described a horrific situation.
Based on what I’ve seen so far Italy has a lot of cases and a lot of deaths but I have not seen a description of its health care system collapsing.

[liberalh8ter]

If that turns out to be accurate, and the experience here in the United States seem to bear it out, where are all the sick and dying people?

If that turns out to be accurate then when all is said and done, “we the people” better make the Democrats and their media sycophants pay dearly for the chaos they’ve caused.