Fatality rate really isn't that meaningful. The bigger problem is the need for hospitalization in 10-20 percent of the infected population and the need for intensive care for many of those people (including needing intubation and ventilators)
Indeed, dying isn't the only concern. Things sure went to hell quickly, there. I don't see how we can expect much better here in the U.S. It's a frightening thought.
As Bill Gates said, the coronavirus may be the 'once-in-a-century pathogen we've been worried about.'
Interview with a doctor in Italy (chief of infectious diseases at Sacco hospital):
https://www.corriere.it/cronache/20_marzo_01/galli-il-coronavirus-italia-settimane-tsunami-il-sistema-sanitario-a153160c-5b3d-11ea-8b1a-b76251361796.shtml?refresh_ce-cpROME - As we speak on the phone to analyze the surge in Covid-19 cases , Professor Massimo Galli - primary infectious disease specialist at the «Sacco» hospital in Milan - is in the ward, forced to interrupt the conversation three times to answer his colleagues at other structures that ask to be able to send serious patients to him: «What you are listening to in real time is worth more than my answers. We are in full emergency . Yes, I am worried ».
How do you explain this surge of contagions?
“What many
of us feared and hoped didn't happen happened. We find ourselves dealing with a large number of patients with important clinical pictures.
Something serious is happening, not only in Italy but also in Germany and France, which could soon find themselves in our same conditions and I do not wish them. We are dealing with a rising tide of demanding patients. "What is the cause of this explosion?
«Many serious clinical pictures and all together suggest that the infection has started to spread in the so-called red zone for quite some time. Perhaps it arrived even before the direct flights from Wuhan were suspended.
It is likely that the patients in the last few days became infected two to four weeks ago and then progressively developed the respiratory symptoms on the basis of which many needed to resort to intensive procedures ".There are those who have compared this disease to the flu. Careless approach?
«Those who tried to instill tranquility, and I understand their good intentions, had no clear knowledge of what a disease like this can cause. In forty-two years of profession I have never seen an influence capable of upsetting the activity of the infectious disease wards and of the reanimations of an entire region among the best organized and prepared for the emergencies of Italy.
No advanced health system can be set up to hospitalize many critically ill patients all together and, moreover, in isolation. Friday in Lombardy there were 85 reanimation beds occupied by intubated patients diagnosed with Covid-19, a very important slice of those available. It should be remembered that the other reasons why a person may need a resuscitation bed don't just disappear because the coronavirus has arrived.Did the measures prepared by the Italian government work?
«Everything that was possible from the point of view of the implemented restrictions was done, without reaching drastic Wuhan-like measures. In Lombardy, I believe that we can only continue with the restrictions adopted. Unfortunately, the virus has probably circulated enough to ensure that the cases in the red zone have not yet all emerged. We must go to the bottom ».
Does this mean that this disease develops slowly starting from the infection?
«The more I read the anamnesis of hospitalized cases, the more it seems to me that it resembles SARS, even in the course of the course, with the most demanding manifestations that in many cases appear 7-10 or more days from the first symptoms. It should be remembered that for each patient involved there are probably three others in which the disease runs much milder but which contribute to spreading the infection ».
Italy seems divided into two for now. In the North the emergency, in the Center-South an apparent calm. Why?
“It could have happened anywhere and there would have been no difference. Someone, perhaps one person, arrived in the area we now call red and spread the infection without our realizing it. A random phenomenon. But now throughout Italy the health system is alerted to the possibility that a patient who presents himself in hospital with an important respiratory picture may have the disease. It is therefore unlikely that a case with these characteristics will not be handled with due caution and the test will not be performed. Unfortunately, an infected patient came to the emergency room in Codogno last week and was not recognized as infected because it did not meet the criteria for classifying suspects dictated by the World Health Organization then in force. A school case that has overturned those criteria.
What do you expect?
«Most of the patients recover without permanent damage even among those with the worst cadres. But in Lombardy there are many and it is absolutely necessary to avoid that they become too many.
The red zone did not extend to metropolitan areas and I hope that the restrictions imposed and maintained will help keep things that way. "
