We should not compare ourselves to Italy

[Mumlove5]

A lot of people are in fear because of what is happening in Italy and it is devastating.

However, Italy is a different country. Every winter and flu season they have a high mortality rate because of their demographics and because of high pollution in the Lombardy region.

A short clip to help:

“ Italy showed a higher influenza attributable excess mortality compared to other European countries. especially in the elderly”

In recent years, Italy has been registering peaks in death rates, particularly among the elderly during the winter season. Influenza epidemics have been indicated as one of the potential determinants of such an excess. The objective of our study was to estimate the influenza-attributable contribution to excess mortality during the influenza seasons from 2013/14 to 2016/17 in Italy.

Methods
We used the EuroMomo and the FluMomo methods to estimate the annual trend of influenza-attributable excess death rate by age group. Population data were provided by the National Institute of Statistics, data on influenza like illness and confirmed influenza cases were provided by the National Institutes of Health. As an indicator of weekly influenza activity (IA) we adopted the Goldstein index, which is the product of the percentage of patients seen with influenza-like illness (ILI) and percentage of influenza-positive specimens, in a given week.

Results
We estimated excess deaths of 7,027, 20,259, 15,801 and 24,981 attributable to influenza epidemics in the 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16 and 2016/17, respectively, using the Goldstein index. The average annual mortality excess rate per 100,000 ranged from 11.6 to 41.2 with most of the influenza-associated deaths per year registered among the elderly. However children less than 5 years old also reported a relevant influenza attributable excess death rate in the 2014/15 and 2016/17 seasons (1.05/100,000 and 1.54/100,000 respectively).

Conclusions
Over 68,000 deaths were attributable to influenza epidemics in the study period. The observed excess of deaths is not completely unexpected, given the high number of fragile very old subjects living in Italy. In conclusion, the unpredictability of the influenza virus continues to present a major challenge to health professionals and policy makers. Nonetheless, vaccination remains the most effective means for reducing the burden of influenza, and efforts to increase vaccine coverage and the introduction of new vaccine strategies (such as vaccinating healthy children) should be considered to reduce the influenza attributable excess mortality experienced in Italy and in Europe in the last seasons.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971219303285

@Bluntness, that's not true. We at the very least know that the line for the UK is almost certainly either going to continue to go up in a straight line for a little while, or become less steep gradually.

We at the very least know that the line for the UK is almost certainly either going to continue to go up in a straight line for a little while, or become less steep gradually

Well yes, because they are the only two realistic options, but we don’t know this from simply comparing two death rates...

“catsandlavender

If you try and post anything that’s not totally negative you get shouted down and told that can’t possibly be true. It’s such weird behaviour”

@catsandlavender Indeed!

People hope (like yourself OP) that we won't mirror Italy.
But let's face it OP, we're not doing well are we?

What are your thoughts on Spain and France's figures?

A few days ago someone said oh look the rate is decreasing, after one or two days. A thread in which people were told not to be so negative.

I and other posters said wait two days is not enough, you need to see a trend. Which turned out to be right.

You can be positive but best to use data realistically.

That was me who posted that. I think my point was misunderstood tbh. I said the rate of new infection had decreased and that was a positive. Not because I believe it's all better now, but because that means in 2 to 3 weeks from those dates there will be fewer people needing hospitalisation.
I was immediately shouted down.

But then I do wonder about when I'm told I cant look at one or two dates data and yet when there is a spike in deaths in one day, that is analysed to death.....

Ok Livin I can see you meant well. As an aside how do we know the rate of infection which will have an impact in 2 to 3 weeks without testing in community?

You can look at what you want.

www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/03/31/824654965/spains-health-staff-are-catching-the-coronavirus-as-protective-gear-runs-short?t=1585733999953

“Spain's public health system is well-regarded. But after the 2008 economic crisis, the government cut billions of dollars in funding, resulting in layoffs and overwhelmed hospitals. Now, the coronavirus pandemic is exacerbating the problem”

This is my greatest fear if we go into a global depression. Right now the recession is worse than 2008.

I know that we are in for a rough few weeks while we get to the peak, I liken it to turbulence on a flight. That there will be periods of relative stability but then it will bounce and feel frightening.
But I don't think that looking at a different point of view and considering all the information presented makes me any less capable of reading the data as others.
So far we have had "well we don't make it up, we use data from places like John hopkins (insert other sources here)" but data from Stanford could be just as relevant no?

I suppose what we ought to be looking at the rate of new infections here and in Italy, not just the death numbers.

It will depend on the numbers tested, but I might be other indication.

Does someone have them? I'm supposed to be working on something else, don't want to fall down that rabbit hole.

Data from anywhere is relevant. I agree that say MIT saying something different to the WHO doesn’t mean MIT is wrong. It’s hardly a tin pot organisation. There are differing expert approaches.

I do wonder about knowing about rate of infection though to know two to three week lag. We only know hospital case numbers.

But let's face it OP, we're not doing well are we?

I’m not sure anyone is doing well, it’s a pandemic and a new disease, everyone is doing their best.

However yes our rate of infection and death rate is lower than that of Italy and Spain currently. That’s not us “doing well” and them not, that’s simply about our demographics, spread through the population, icu availability in line with case loads etc. Rate of infection is critical across the different demographics, because a percentage of those need hospitalisation, and that percentage differs by demographic, and then a percentage of those will sadly die. Again that percentage differs by demographic,

How many are infected, how quickly they are infected, and who is infected, is vital to be able to project,

Every single country is doing what they can to control and contain this, to manage it, but every country is different fundamentally in terms of demographics, behaviour, health care system etc,

No one is saying this is going to stop tomorrow. No one is saying they know the definitive answer. Everyone knows there are sadly many deaths to come. Everyone knows we are not at the peak. What is being said though is for projections to be even remotely accurate, they need to be much more involved than here’s two sets of death numbers.

The only way those two sets of numbers could predict the future is if the underlying factors were correlated.

So for example if we had the exact same conditions as Italy in terms of spread, age, vulnerabilities, healthcare etc. Or if the difference in spread and demographics ultimately came to the same number of deaths.

So for example if our spread was faster than Italy, and our death rate higher across younger people or a heavier number of our older impacted than Italy , then of course we could come to the same number, as we have a younger population, just via a different route.