Looking at Italy's numbers ... and attempting to understand

[UpInArms]

April 5 (GMT)

4316 new cases and 525 new deaths in Italy [source]

April 4 (GMT)

4805 new cases and 681 new deaths in Italy. The number of patients hospitalized in intensive care has declined for the first time since the beginning of the epidemic in Italy

The target of bringing down the reproductive number (R0) to 1 has been reached. Now the goal is to bring it below 1. Earlier in the epidemic, it was as high as 3. This value represents the average number of people to which a single infected person will transmit the virus. An epidemic with a reproductive number below 1 will gradually disappear

An estimated 30,000 lives have been saved as an effect of the lockdown measures, according to Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) [source] [source]
April 3 (GMT)

Italy: the real number of COVID-19 cases in the country could be 5,000,0000 (compared to the 119,827 confirmed ones) according to a study which polled people with symptoms who have not been tested, and up to 10,000,000 or even 20,0000,000 after taking into account asymptomatic cases, according to Carlo La Vecchia, a Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology at the Statale di Milano University.

This number would still be insufficient to reach herd immunity, which would require 2/3 of the population (about 40,000,000 people in Italy) having contracted the virus [source].

The number of deaths could also be underestimated by 3/4 (in Italy as well as in other countries) [source], meaning that the real number of deaths in Italy could be around 60,000.

If these estimates were true, the mortality rate from COVID-19 would be much lower (around 25 times less) than the case fatality rate based solely on laboratory-confirmed cases and deaths, since it would be underestimating cases (the denominator) by a factor of about 1/100 and deaths by a factor of 1/4.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

[IronLionZion]

1. Glad that Italy's numbers are finally improving

but USA's numbers are doing quite the opposite due to leadership that seems deliberately malicious.

[Igel]

2. Understanding?

That may take a bit of work.

It was apparently widespread by 3/15 but few knew. Apparently it had more than one person infected by tourists, in more than one area.

Then the first cases weren't IDed as COVID but just pneumonia, and it stayed there for a couple of days.

When it was IDed, immediately a half dozen cases were IDed, I think by the same hospital (but I give that memory a 20% reliability rating) and 20 more within a day.

Notice that in the US it was a case here, then a case there. Or there was a spike because of a bunch of cases in a specific facility, like a nursing home. No, these were community spread and not due to a single cause. So it was widespread. Think about it--right now we have people calling for lockdown in some red states that have a lower incidence than Italy did at the point where Italy acknowledged its first case. Italy and New York declared lockdowns at about the same point in the curve. It's not a shock that they have similar outcomes. (New York was ahead of the pack by this point and still was resisting lockdown.)

Having a bunch of people who could carry the virus leave Lombardy was a stroke of genius, too. Nobody really obeyed the orders at first.

Then demographics. Older population. If you have a 0.14% chance of dying if you're 20-30 and a chance of dying more than 10 times higher over a certain age, older population = much higher overall death rate. Even in NY the demographics follow that curve--more died over 90 years old, it looks like, than 0-60 combined (if not actually greater, it's close). Greatest death toll is 80+. Average Italian COVID death as of a couple weeks ago was 80.

That accounts for a lot of the variance--how much, I can't say.

[UpInArms]

3. Thank you

I am waiting for the shoe to drop in my rural community...

Our local nursing home just had a resident diagnosed with covid19... it was definitely community spread ...

Missouri does not go on lockdown until 5 pm today ...

The nursing home administrator requested that all residents and employees get tested and was told NO ... no one will be tested until they present with symptoms... and everyone has been asymptomatic to date ... they have been on lockdown since 3/12 ... no one in or out except for employees...

When it explodes, it is going to be hell