RetireJapan

TokyoWart wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2020 2:54 am Despite all the bungling in the US and relatively poor lack of access to healthcare there, it's still doing better than many EU countries with their universal healthcare systems in terms of deaths. I have seen analyses on Italy which point out that it generally does poorly during flu epidemics and has an unusually low number of ICU beds per million population.

The high spread in italy would likely be due to cultural issues. Not only do families live in multi-generational homes and dine together, people also have a lot of close contact, and cheek kissing(or whatever you call it) is a common way of greeting. This is simply a recipe for disaster and why this spread so suddenly in italy, not a reflection of their medical infrastructure.

In the US many of the conservative "red" States which have been slow to put in movement restrictions still have minimal disease burden or have passed the point of projected peak resource use, while more urbanized liberal "blue" States like New Jersey and New York which have been draconian in stay-at-home orders have suffered the highest population-adjusted death rates.

Again, this is population density in action. It should be no surprise that in towns with few external visitors and where people live more spaced out that there are fewer cases than large cities with huge numbers of visitors and a lot of crowded contact. New York is a victim of its own success here. Its current situation is in no way a reflection of its response(though it has repeatedly been hampered by federal government).

For here in Japan we simply do not have the data to know how good or bad things are here now. But I'd guess we're probably around a reproduction rate of 1 in tokyo now... new daily cases are probably not increasing(or if they are, not at the massive rate they were earlier). But there are a LOT of uncounted deaths out there. They're behind on testing, and they're not posthumously testing people for the virus. We're flying blind.

Again, this is population density in action. It should be no surprise that in towns with few external visitors and where people live more spaced out that there are fewer cases than large cities with huge numbers of visitors and a lot of crowded contact. New York is a victim of its own success here. Its current situation is in no way a reflection of its response(though it has repeatedly been hampered by federal government).

Population density is not a good explanation for the areas most impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. In China and Korea the worst affected areas were not the most populated cities. That's also been the case in Italy. Because deaths concentrate so highly in nursing homes for this disease the regional death rates depend a lot on how well such institutions have been kept free of virus. New York's deaths are also showing some of the higher risk factors for the worst pulmonary outcomes in some ethnic communities. Here is an assessment of New York's response from the New Yorker (which is usually sympathetic to NYC politics):

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020 ... ks-did-not

As a further example, Texas has a greater population than New Jersey and New York combined and has more cities with populations over a million yet is coming in at about a third of New Jersey's numbers on the disease. As you know, even though we are much more concentrated in Tokyo and took less dramatic lock-down measures, the number of hospitalizations and deaths here in Japan is a small fraction of what's currently reported in New York. In about a year it will be possible to look at overall excess age-adjusted deaths from any cause which will help fill in gaps about how much death rates have increased during the pandemic in specific regions and countries.

OkLah! wrote: ↑Tue Apr 28, 2020 5:06 am Not sure it is correct but it seems developed nations are doing worse with exception of Asia. It could be that information is more transparent.

But I wonder if it has anything to do with the immune system. I remember in France as soon as you cough you go to the doctor and you get almost automatically a few weeks of antibiotics.

In Japan I was surprised that when you get those they just give it to you for 2 of 3 days and the exact number of pills you need.

Could it be same in less developed countries where they are more used to seeing more diseases?

By the way learned yesterday that the Spanish flu actually originated in Kansas. I guess we should stop calling pandemics with a location prefix!

Well there could be several other reason for this.
1 Less developed nations may not have a very well developed health care system that caters to everyone, less monitoring, and there may be barriers to actually seeking treatment. E.G Cost,
2Less developed nations may have a less developed infrastructure and people may not move around as much with rail,plane, localising any infections.
3.The amount of travel from richer countries, say, Europe to New York, Asia to say California, Italy ski resorts to other countries, may increase the likely hood of spread.
4: It maybe that the spread, especially in slums will take time.

So, I wouldn't think there is anything to do with the immune system, because nobody has ever been exposed to the virus before, i put it down to lower international travel which with the lock down will reduce it further.

Not sure about the french system but there may be benefit for a doctor to prescribe an Anti-biotic and there may be personal reasons why a patient may get a long course of antibiotics. However I am still of the mind doctors dish out antibiotics to placate a patient, to kick them out the door. No patient was to be told... there is nothing we can do. Go home, Go to bed, Drink fluids, and Sleep. If it gets worse, come back and then we will reassess you.
Antibiotics have NO EFFECT ON VIRUSES what so ever. Hence the huge increase in MRSA, and now many of the antibiotics we use are becoming ineffective.
We've forgotten pre WW2, that many people died of a simple thing such as a cut finger, and sepsis. TB is a good example of how patients fail to take their antibiotics properly and now it is mutating and becoming resistant. I think there is now only one anti-biotic left for TB.

The W.H.O has recommended that viruses shouldn't be named after the place it originates, and they specifically mentioned discrimination as to the reasons why, and the "risks" to that population, and the damage it can do to the area economically.
. Usually the W.H.O gets the pressure from countries in regards to naming a certain disease, and there are very good reasons.( why Trump et al tried to play a certain "cultural" card)
Thats will explain why this is called COVID 19.
https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/no ... seases/en/