Coronavirus Attacks Italy's Sick and Elderly
Italy has been inundated with the Coronavirus and their fatality rate has topped 10% of the 86,000 confirmed cases.
Stats from Italy. Credit: Johns Hopkins University
The northern region’s close ties with Wuhan caused the explosion in cases.
And now that the government is releasing as much data as it can on the deceased, a clearer picture is coming to light.
The Italian National Health Authority’s initial study shows that not only does the data on mortality rate skew heavily towards patients in their 80s and 90s, but also patients with pre-existing conditions.
99.2% of the Italian fatalities were suffering from at least one other illness. What’s more, 75% of the fatalities were patients suffering from at least 2 other severe illnesses.
In fact, of all of the samples the Italian National Health Authority examined only 3 actual patients were found without another illness.
There was no testing done on whether these patients were obese, smokers or drug abusers and so that data is not available.
More than 75% of the deceased patients in the study had high blood pressure while a third suffered from heart disease or diabetes, diseases associated with old age. The fact that this virus has raged havoc in nursing homes makes complete sense.
What’s more, younger Italians are not contracting the Coronavirus or are not showing signs of the virus. The median age of citizens who have tested positive for Coronavirus is 63, while the median age of the mortality rate is in the 80s.
However some argue that proper testing has not been done throughout the country and the real Italian death rate is much lower. The GIMBE foundation believes the number of infected Italians is well over 100,000, possibly over a million and that would bring the mortality rate more in line with other countries.
Sadly, the Italian Health ministry just released a record number of Italian deaths for March 27th, of 919.
Deaths per day in Italy. Credit: Worldometers.info
Unfortunately, the worst is not yet behind Italy, despite what looked like a declining number of fatalities this past week.
Italy has suffered a greater death toll than China or any other nation for that matter. An aging population mixed with a healthcare infrastructure that has ⅓ of Germany’s ICU beds doesn’t make for a great recipe. But, one would have hoped for a quelling or at least a slowing in the dramatic spread of the virus throughout the country by now.
The northern Lombardy region with their heavily older population and expensive cost of living relative to the rest of Italy has been the location of over 60% of the Italian deaths and has seen a mortality rate approaching 20%.
Written by Alex Fleiss & Edited by Paul Marrinan
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