Why aren't cases in Italy going down?

[Flowersforpowers]

Genuine question. Italy went in to lockdown over two weeks ago (bars and restaurants closed on 11 March). Everything I read seems to be based on a maximum two week incubation period for the vast majority of people. So why aren't the numbers of cases starting to slow/plateau/go down? Should we be concerned that it means lockdown doesn't work? Or is it just too early to tell?

if you look at the graphs etc of projections you can see it takes a while to start getting anywhere

Today is the 17th day from the national lockdown and the first regulations were stricter than the UK, but still pretty much a lockdown lite compared to now.
The first wave lockdown (nationally) was closing the schools and only letting a couple of people at a time into shops.
So people pretty much carried on as usual apart from social distancing.
There have been 4 tweaks since then.
As I said, none of the scientists are expecting significant reductions until 3-10 April at the earliest, but the rate of increase is already slowing. The problem now will be if the south has largely avoided it in time or not, and the feeling is not. But it's going to hit the south only in the next few weeks because of when it was hit. (After 8/3)

I suspect there is some non compliance in Italy going on that we aren’t seeing. In fact quite a lot. In addition they made a tactical error, shutting down only part of the country instead of all of it at once.

It also seems scientists for some reason, and I don’t understand it, but they are saying that social distancing works better than lockdown/stringent measures to control the spread.

It seems they think if there is a an extended lock down a resurgence is a really really big possibility,

There is also something about viral load. Basically if you ingest/inhale a small amount of the virus, Ie from touching your shopping,or being near one person briefly,, it’s odds on you’ll be very mildly ill to non symptomatic, then gain immunity, where as if you ingest or inhale a lot, Ie from a number of people, or repeatedly in a short period , you’ll be very ill. Someone will explain that better than me, but it could explain why scientists orefer social distancing.

Because lock down won’t work long term or even mid term, , and if you only get it mildly because you’ve social distanced, then we all start to get immunity and less people are very ill.

I think Italy is not social distancing and lock down clearly isn’t working the way it’s intended, because the number of cases indicate that people are still spreading it.

Yes, the Lombardia governor has said their original decision to only lockdown the hotspots was a mistake.
Fact of the matter is, like most places, it wasn't taken seriously until it was too late.
There is almost total compliance now, but when lockdown began the limitations were pretty lenient for the first phase.
I think the estimates need really to go not from the 10th when the first national lockdown began, but probably from the end of last week (Saturday) when everything was shut down except feeding people and giving them medicine.