so does anyone with knowledge of the people and the area know why Italy is so special in terms of outbreak.
They aren’t that much different than other countries.
Yes, they have a Chinese population there. But so do we in some areas.
Lot of Chinese came back there after Chinese New Year celebrations. There was a huge ‘family potluck’ dinner in Wuhan. Millions of people fled that city when word of a lockdown went out. Disbursed the population.
Italy hit hard but will spread to the rest of Europe. They had to shut down because the hospital system is overwhelmed.
Italy isn't special, it just got started a little earlier there. Feb 27, under two weeks ago they only had 655 cases, now they are at 9,172. It's what exponential growth looks like.
Today the US has 624 cases. So in two weeks, we might expect nine thousand. But nothing is set in stone, epidemics are not fate. We can slow it down. We need more action, more people taking it seriously, and much much less "it's just the flu bro."
Their median age is 8 years older than ours in the US. 46.5 vs 38.5. 2018 estimates.
Garment workers in the fashion industry in Milan are predominantly Chinese and many went home for the holidays & returned. There is a lot of cross pollination with Chinese buyer being a big presence at the fashion shows. A number of participating designers are Chinese as well.
italy is pro-chinese
and it is known that many people from the Wenzhou region have technology/factory in Italy that hires a lot of chinese from wenzhou....
so when Wuhan shutdown due to Wuhan Pneumonia , people with relatives in wenzhou all made it there.
They have a large number of ME refugees and they don’t practice any western sanitation methods.
Genetic and trade links between Italians and Iranians, perhaps? I don’t know.