Re: Italy Death total overtakes China

Thanks for the links, and reasoned data, Archangel. Honestly don’t get the criticism you’re receiving on here, surely a bit of perspective backed up by valid sources is to be welcomed, not angrily dismissed and categorised with the ‘it’s only flu brigade’.

The criticism people rightfully receive for dismissing this virus as a non-entity is wholly justified however, the level of hysteria and fear doesn’t seem to match the reality of the illness when you look at the real data. People keep citing Italy like that will be us in a few weeks time, as if a subject like this is as simple as that.

As has been pointed out several times, they have an older than normal population, grandparents live in the house with the youngsters, a huge Chinese community, huge tourist numbers AND an actual expert - not some mug on a message board - has said that most of their deaths were not caused by the virus itself. That’s not ‘playing it down’, it’s called a level-headed view rather than driving yourself mad with fear at their daily death count and assuming that exactly the same - or indeed worse - will 100% happen here. Did anybody read Arteta’s wife talking about his condition ? That he would usually just take a paracetamol and go back to work? Ok, he’s a former athlete so not the norm, what about Nadine Dorries and her elderly mother who got over it fairly quickly? If we’re going to make assumptions based on the negative data i.e. the deaths from already very sick people in Italy/Spain mean Armageddon here, then let’s do the same for reports like this - there must be thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Joe Publics who have had and got over this already. Thousands who aren’t compiled in the data and, as such, make the mortality rate look far worse than it actually is. I keep pointing towards the Diamond Princess as the fairest study of this - an isolated population, a floating Petri dish, where 7 out of 697 cases died. Most of whom fairly elderly, none of whom received immediate medical attention. There were also nearly 4000 people on the ship.

People shouldn’t dismiss this out of hand, we should be careful, hygienic and do our best to protect our more vulnerable friends and relatives. But to panic, spread doom and indeed shoot down anyone who tries to view this rationally in flames, is quite frankly as pathetic as the ‘it’s only flu’ types.