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More than 99% of Italy's coronavirus fatalities were people who suffered from previous medical conditions, according to a study by the country's national health authority.

After deaths from the virus reached more than 2,500, with a 150% increase in the past week, health authorities have been combing through data to provide clues to help combat the spread of the disease.

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walton91 said:

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I believe I read that Italy has the oldest population in Europe, which certainly is a contributing factor in their death rate. Of course Japan has an old population too, and not near as many deaths

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FrioAg 00 said:

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India has a very very young population (less than 6% over 65), and despite horrid health conditions and lack of healthcare infrastructure they are having very little impact

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Moxley said:

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If this number is accurate, I actually don't think this bodes well for a lot of people in the United States. Diabetes and hypertension are out of control here. Diabetes and hypertension is what leads to heart disease in a lot of cases.

Most older people in the United States have hypertension at bare minimum.

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FrioAg 00 said:

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23% of people in Italy are over 65, so it doesn't surprise me they have other health issues

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Moxley said:

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If this number is accurate, I actually don't think this bodes well for a lot of people in the United States. Diabetes and hypertension are out of control here. Diabetes and hypertension is what leads to heart disease in a lot of cases.

Most older people in the United States have hypertension at bare minimum.

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Moxley said:

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Most of the folks that died had hypertension, diabetes, and/or heart disease.

Not necessarily good news for Texas America.

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Moxley said:

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Most of the folks that died had hypertension, diabetes, and/or heart disease.

Not necessarily good news for Texas.

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AggieFrog said:

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Wonder if that includes those whose hypertension is controlled via medication or if it doesn't matter.

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Moxley said:

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If this number is accurate, I actually don't think this bodes well for a lot of people in the United States. Diabetes and hypertension are out of control here. Diabetes and hypertension is what leads to heart disease in a lot of cases.

Most older people in the United States have hypertension at bare minimum.

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Tailgate88 said:

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AggieFrog said:

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Wonder if that includes those whose hypertension is controlled via medication or if it doesn't matter.

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My question as well.

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hph6203 said:

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NASAg03 said:

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No. Of the 2.86 million people that died last year in the US, 2.06 million were 65 and older.

Meaning that the majority of people that die from coronavirus are already going to die this year. They aren't getting extra 5 or 10 years of life.

Let that sink in.

2.06 million people aged 65+ will die this year. Sad fact of reality, but tell me why we shutting down the world to prevent the inevitable from happening this year.

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Everyone dies some day, the goal is to put that off as long as possible. Like it or not this disease is gonna mess with our economy no matter what, because when 2 million more people die in a year, people will notice. When the number of people in the hospital goes up by 50% in a year, people are gonna notice. You can truncate that down to a shorter time frame and then let the economy rebound, or you can allow it to go on for 18 months and pile up corpses.

It won't just be 2 million people from COVID-19, by the way, it'll be those plus kids that get in car accidents that don't get the care they need. Women who are pregnant that have complications, get a double whammy there.


Here's the thing. People with way more knowledge than you are advising the administration on how to proceed, and if I were to bet I'd say Trump's inclinations are with what you want, but he's seen the projections and heard from experts and has determined this is the better course of action.

Here's the other thing, it's happening whether you like it or not so make the best of it and stop rooting for people to die.

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[Ionnidis and I] spoke by phone on Tuesday, not long after his article appeared, and found that we had more in common than it appeared when I first read it.

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Ioannidis is right that the prospect of intense social distancing for months or years is one that can hardly be imagined, let alone enacted. The alternative of letting the infection spread uncontrolled is equally unimaginable. We certainly need more data. Even more than that, we need a breakthrough to make effective treatments, vaccines, or other preventive measures available at scale.

Waiting and hoping for a miracle as health systems are overrun by Covid-19 is not an option. For the short term there is no choice but to use the time we are buying with social distancing to mobilize a massive political, economic, and societal effort to find new ways to cope with this virus.

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NASAg03 said:

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"Conversely, with lockdowns of months, if not years, life largely stops, short-term and long-term consequences are entirely unknown, and billions, not just millions, of lives may be eventually at stake.

If we decide to jump off the cliff, we need some data to inform us about the rationale of such an action and the chances of landing somewhere safe."

Signed,

John P.A. Ioannidis, professor of medicine, of epidemiology and population health, of biomedical data science, and of statistics at Stanford University and co-director of Stanford's Meta-Research Innovation Center

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