International COVID-19 Megathread

[Antonio the Sixth]

475 more deaths in Italy today, total death toll is almost at 3000. 35K total cases, of which 28K active.

[Antonio the Sixth]

All these supposed "lockdowns" are way too lax (especially the CA and NY ones, which are a complete joke). We're seeing a very literal representation of "too little, too late" in action. These measures must be taken before the number of cases begins spiking up (because by the time you see them, there are already many more going undetected). They must be total. You can only get out of your house to buy groceries, medicine, or to go to work if your job is truly indispensable. No jogging or walking the dog. And they must be enforced. Put cops on the street, even the military if that's not enough. Impose hefty fines. Lock up repeat offenders. If you do all that, the situation should work itself out in 2-3 weeks, without overwhelming the healthcare system.

Instead, Italy chose half-measures, and is paying the price now. Other countries aren't even willing to go that far, and they'll pay the price soon enough.

[Antonio the Sixth]

There aren't frankly enough cops and military in any country to enforce a total, nationwide lockdown. The Chinese could only do it for one province.

Well, however many are available should be put to that use. Every little bit helps.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Still refusing to send in the army.

Anyway, we're about to find out if the first lockdown orders have had any effect. If you buy the 2-week delayed effect theory, we should start seeing the impact in the Monday numbers. If the growth is still going unabated, that means the measures had no effect. Which in turns would mean that the next few weeks are going to see continued exponential growth, likely resulting in the catastrophic breakdown of healthcare provision across the Northern regions and the beginning of the collapse in the Center and South. In other words, the country would be completely and utterly f**ked.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Some charts for Italy.

National totals:


National totals, log scale:


Deaths
ICU
Other Hospitalized
Isolated Home
Cured

Total cases by region per million inhabitants, log scale:


Deaths by region per million inhabitants, log scale:

[Antonio the Sixth]

Impressive work, Antonio. Those log scales show definite cause for hope.

Thanks. I'd say so as well. We've moved from exponential growth to linear growth, which was the necessary first step - now we have to wait and see if the linear trend starts flattening.

Some more data to see the trend. Overall, compared to 03/21 (the last day of exponential growth), the total number of cases in Italy has increased by 38.8%. The growth rate was 26.8% in Lombardy, 49.9% in Emilia-Romagna, 39.5% in Veneto, 60.6% in Piemonte, 50.3% in other Northern regions, 46.4% in Central regions, and 57.2% in the South and Isles.

By comparison, the growth in cases for the previous 4 days had been 70% in Italy as a whole, 57.3% in Lombardy, 70.6% in Emilia-Romagna, 70.7% in Veneto, 97.8% in Piemonte, 98.7% in other Northern regions, 80.2% in Central regions, and 109.5% in the South and Isles.

So Lombardy is dragging the entire rest of the country down (which is great news considering how overrun it is), but the growth rate is slowing down everywhere. It's still scarily fast in the South, since the epidemic spread later there, but by comparison, Emilia-Romagna reached the infection rate that the South reached on 03/21 on 03/05. In the 4 days prior, the growth rate had been 144.9%, and in the 4 days following it had been 98.6%. So it looks like the lockdown should prevent a repeat of what happened North of the Appennines. Of course, all these numbers are a function of testing capacity, and there's reason to believe it might be lagging especially in Southern regions. But oh well, that's the best data we have.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The numbers are bad in Italy, but not catastrophically so. We've gone from 5000 new cases per day earlier to 6000 or so today and yesterday. Some of it might be due to ramped-up testing as well. But yeah, this isn't the slowdown we were hoping for, and if it continues I really don't know what else we can do.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Still lots of deaths in Italy today, but the number of new cases is stable for the third consecutive day at around 6000.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Another ""decent"" (so to speak) day for Italy, with "only" 4000 new cases like the day before. We'll see if this trend will continue today. Still plenty of deaths.

The government said the restrictions will continue at least until Easter, but the grumblings about beginning to reopen after Easter are growing louder (championed by business organizations and, of course, everyone's favorite little troublemaker Matteo Renzi). Reopening in just two weeks from now sounds... incredibly irresponsible to me, but we'll see. Hopefully the curve will flatten and begin to recede in the next few days.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Updated Italy charts.

National totals:


National totals, log scale:


Deaths
ICU
Other Hospitalized
Isolated Home
Cured

Total cases by region per million inhabitants, log scale:


Deaths by region per million inhabitants, log scale:



The slowdown in new cases is now clearly visible, although we haven't quite reached the peak. The hospitalizations trend in particular is very encouraging (although there's the scary possibility that what's happening is people who need to be hospitalized aren't because of lack of available beds, but I haven't seen reports of that this past week). Still 700-900 deaths every day, which is a terrifyingly high number. Hopefully we should start seeing it decline as well soon.


The past 3 days have shown a significant slowdown, so let's see the growth rates by region. Main number is growth from 03/29 to 04/01 (parenthetical number 03/26 to 03/29).

Italy Total: 13.2% (21.2%)
Lombardy: 9.2% (17.5%)
Emilia-Romagna: 12.7% (21.3%)
Piemonte: 19.4% (24.6%)
Veneto: 15.2% (20.5%)
Other North: 16.6% (24.2%)
Center: 15.6% (23.5%)
South: 19.6% (33.5%)

Very good news especially out of Lombardy, which is definitely seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Also good to see the slowdown proceed at roughly the same pace in the Center and South, suggesting they won't see a repeat of what happened up North.

[Antonio the Sixth]

In Italy they're counting anyone who tested positive and then died as a COVID death. But not everyone who died of COVID actually got tested, of course. So there's probably some undercounting going on, but maybe not as much as in other places (hence the very high mortality rate).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Updated Italy charts.

National totals:


National totals, log scale:


Deaths
ICU
Other Hospitalized
Isolated Home
Cured

Total cases by region per million inhabitants, log scale:


Deaths by region per million inhabitants, log scale:



Genuinely good news this week. The curve has begun to actually flatten. While cases are still growing due to ramped-up testing, the number of hospitalizations (both in regular beds and ICUs) has been trending steadily down since Saturday. Of course, part of the downward trend is due to continued death (deceased+hospitalized total is still inching slightly up, albeit marginally), but even the daily death toll has finally begun to level off (from 700-800 earlier in the week to 500-600 now). There's still a long ways to go, and I have strong reservations about the government's plans to start reopening factories after Easter, but it does seem like the hard-lockdown imposed in the past few weeks has borne its fruits. Italy will have to keep living with the epidemic for a while still, but if we can ensure that new patients arrive in hospitals at the same rate as old ones are being cured, then we can get through this while saving as many lives as possible.


Growth rates by region. Main number is growth from 04/05 to 04/08 (parenthetical number 04/02 to 04/05).

Italy Total: 8.1% (11.9%)
Lombardy: 5.9% (9.5%)
Emilia-Romagna: 6.7% (11.5%)
Piemonte: 12.3% (19.4%)
Veneto: 10.5% (11.0%)
Other North: 10.7% (15.2%)
Center: 8.8% (10.8%)
South: 9.8% (15.0%)

Curve is flattening even down South, far from the epicenter. That's great news, as it means we will never see a repeat of Lombardy down there (which would be untenable for the shambolic healthcare systems of Southern regions). The North outside of Lombardy is still showing significant growth, but that might be due to increased testing.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Updated Italy charts.

National totals:


National totals, log scale:


Deaths
ICU
Other Hospitalized
Isolated Home
Cured

Total cases by region per million inhabitants, log scale:


Deaths by region per million inhabitants, log scale:


And here's a new, and perhaps more telling metric: deaths+hospitalizations per million inhabitants, log scale:



As you can see, from the first two charts as well as the last one, the total of patients who died or are still hospitalized (both ICU and otherwise) has flattened out in the past couple weeks, and actually just started going down(the peak was on 04/15). In other words, there are not more people leaving hospitals every day with a clean bill of health than new patients being admitted. If you add to that the death toll (which sadly continues to be very high, since it's a lagging indicator), the pressure on the healthcare system is rapidly decreasing. From a peak of 33K hospitalized on 04/04, we are now down to 28.6K, a 13.3% drop.

The number of people with mild symptoms who are quarantined home continues to increase at a rapid rate, but it seems to be a function of increased testing. There have been 337k in the past 7 days, compared to 287K in the prior 7 days and 226K in those still prior. The fact that these people have mild symptoms and don't need hospitalization explains why they weren't detected until recently, when testing capacity was amped up. It's worth noting that these mild-symptom positives are not tested again, so many of them are probably already cured of the virus but don't figure in the statistics.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Updated Italy charts.
 From a peak of 33K hospitalized on 04/04, we are now down to 28.6K, a 13.3% drop.

Antonio, what is the source of your data/graphs?

Are you plotting this yourself, or taking it off another site/source?

The data is official government statistics (specifically from Protezione Civile, basically the Italian FEMA). The charts were plotted by me, yeah.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Happy Italian Liberation Day! And on this note, here are some charts to show that we're hopefully on our way to liberation from this f**king virus.

National totals:


National totals, log scale:


Deaths
ICU
Other Hospitalized
Isolated Home
Cured

And since they have clearly plateaued now, I'm switching to a linear scale to depict hospitalizations+deaths figures by region:


I think the charts speak for themselves at this point. Even the total number of active cases+deaths have started declining, meaning more new people are recovering than are getting sick. It's still a high plateau, and it will take a while to start coming down, but if we don't f**k up Phase 2, the worst might be behind us.

Still around 400-500 people are dying every day, but it was expected that that number would be the last to go down.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Italy is beginning to reopen today, so it's a good time to take stock of how the lockdown worked out and what the situation is as we brace ourselves for a likely second wave.

National totals, linear scale (cropping the cured patients off the chart to show the more important patterns):


National totals, log scale:


Deaths
ICU
Other Hospitalized
Isolated Home
Cured

Hospitalizations+deaths figures by region, linear scale:


The drop in hospitalizations+deaths has kind of leveled off since the beginning of the month, but overall the levels are still considerably lower than they were at their peak. The number of patients in ICU, in particular, is back to its levels from the earliest days of the lockdown. That doesn't exactly allay my fears about how the reopening is going to go, but it means that the epidemic was at least under control up to today. The South and Center especially have gotten off easy if the patterns don't change.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's been two weeks since Italy began reopening (and today the second phase of the process has begun), so we should start getting a sense of whether the measures are working. Let's take a look.

National totals, linear scale (cropping the cured patients off the chart to show the more important patterns):


National totals, log scale:


Deaths
ICU
Other Hospitalized
Isolated Home
Cured

Hospitalizations+deaths figures by region, linear scale:


So far, things look okay. The number of active cases has continued to plummet rapidly, and unlike earlier this is mostly due to people getting cured rather than dying. The number of people in ICUs is almost back to its levels on March 9th, when the first lockdown measures were enacted. The number of total hospitalization is back to its March 15th levels. Today saw "only" 99 deaths, which is the smallest number since, again, March 9th. So it seems we're heading in the right direction. Still, the trend has started to look like it's leveling off in the past few days, as the pool of dead+hospitalized has remained stable at 43,000 since the weekend. I'm sort of afraid to see it go up again, but there's only one way to find out.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Today is Italy's national day, where we celebrate the proclamation of the Italian Republic. In that spirit, here's some more good news for the country, albeit with a note of caution.

National totals, linear scale (cropping the cured patients off the chart to show the more important patterns):


National totals, log scale:


Deaths
ICU
Other Hospitalized
Isolated Home
Cured

Hospitalizations+deaths figures by region, linear scale:


The number of active cases has been falling very rapidly, from over 65K to just under 40K. Concurrently, we have added less than 1400 new deaths, or 100 a day on average. Certainly a high number, but a far cry from the 700-800 at the peak of the crisis, and still less than half the amount in the previous two weeks. So we can at least definitively conclude that the first wave of reopenings, on May 4, was a success.

What about the second wave on May 18? Well, the trend seems to still be in the right direction. Active cases+deaths have continued going down in the most recent days, as have hospitalizations+deaths. And we've consistently had 75 or fewer deaths per day since Sunday. Still, if you look carefully at the cumulative charts, you can see the trend of decrease starting to level off. Active cases aren't decreasing as far as they used to, and in some areas (including the South) the hospitalizations+deaths figure has actually inched up just so slightly. This might just be a natural leveling-off, or it might mean that the latest reopening measures came a bit too fast. We should find out very soon.

Regardless, the government is going ahead with a third phase tomorrow, which will for the first time authorize movements across regions. Many Southerners are afraid that this will lead to Northerners fleeing en masse and bringing the epidemic with them. Frankly, that's a real risk and it seems to me that the government is being awfully cavalier about it. I really hope they know what they're doing.

[Antonio the Sixth]

4 months after the first declared homegrown coronavirus case, and 17 days since the reopening of travel across regions, here's another update.

National totals, linear scale (cropping the cured patients off the chart to show the more important patterns):


Deaths
ICU
Other Hospitalized
Isolated Home
Cured

Hospitalizations+deaths figures by region, linear scale:


The total number of active cases continues to drop: we're down to just 21K. We have just 2626 people hospitalized, the least since March 5th. In other words, we're back to pre-lockdown numbers. Below the surface, though, there are some worrying signs. You really need to add active cases/hospitalizations to the death figures, since not doing so essentially means counting deaths as a "win". When you do that, the decrease looks a lot less steep (as you can see in the charts above). More importantly, in the last few days, it's almost entirely due to Lombardy. That's great news for the Lombards, who really deserve a break, but it does suggest that the other regions might be seeing the beginning of a new uptick. So far it's been more of a stagnation than an uptick, but remember that it's just barely been two weeks since the reopening of regional travel. I know I've been nervous about Italy's trajectory for a while, and so far things are still heading in the right direction (I'd certainly rather be in Italy than the US right now...), but still. I would still keep an eye on the numbers for another few weeks.

I think I'll make my next update in a month or so. Depending on how that goes, I might have another one a month after that. Let's see.

[Antonio the Sixth]

A quick update on Italian statistics. Putting up just the national chart because collecting the regional statistics is a pain in the ass.

National totals, linear scale (cropping the cured patients off the chart to show the more important patterns):


Deaths
ICU
Other Hospitalized
Isolated Home
Cured

Basically, the total number of active cases has continued to fall throughout the first half of the month, but now finally seems to have bottomed out. Since 07/15, it's been steady around 12.5K (that's about the figures we had on 03/12, shortly after the lockdown was imposed, but of course testing was very limited back then, so the true figures were probably much higher). Hospitalizations are back to their 03/01 levels, a very easily manageable level. And there are now less than 50 patients in ICUs.

We continue to have around 10-15 deaths every day on average, and the total death toll has just crossed the symbolic 35K bar. It will probably take a while before it stops completely, but we're on the right track. And the stability in the total dead+sick count below 50K indicates that there isn't much potential for growth.

Unless the Italian government screws something up badly (always a possibility, of course), the health crisis is over in Italy. Now, the economic crisis has only just begun, and to solve it we're at the mercy of shortsighted, sociopathic Northern European leaders, so that's a whole new game...