Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach [Note updates at the end]
Since the earliest days of the current pandemic, Italy has been the scary member of the family that you absolutely don’t want to emulate, the one cousin that gets into really bad trouble. The Italians have the highest rate of deaths from the COVID-19 coronavirus, and their numbers continue to climb. Here’s the situation today.
Figure 1. Deaths from the COVID-19 coronavirus expressed as deaths per ten million of the country population. Percentages of the total population are shown at the right in blue. All countries are aligned at the date of their first reported death. Most recent daily chart and charts of previous days are available by going here and scrolling down.
Italy, with over six thousand dead, is up well into the blue range. This is the range of annual deaths from the flu in the US. If the US coronavirus patients were dying at the same rate as in Italy, we’d have 38,000 coronavirus deaths by now in addition to the same number of flu deaths …
As a result, there has been much debate about why the Italian death rate is so high. People have suggested that it’s because they have one of the older populations in Europe. Others have noted that they often live in extended families. Some say it’s high numbers of smokers and polluted air. And some have pointed to their social habits that involve touching, kissing cheeks, personal contact during church rituals, and the like.
But we haven’t had good data to take a hard look at the question, or at least I hadn’t seen any.
In the comments to my post entitled END THE AMERICAN LOCKDOWN, wherein I passionately advocate just exactly that, I was given a link by a web friend, Mary Ballon, hat tip to her. It’s a report by a Swiss medical doctor about the COVID-19 deaths in Italy, well worth reading.
And in that document, there’s a further link to an Italian Government report. It’s in Italian of course, I have it on good authority that’s what they actually speak over there, who knew? They reported on the statistics of a large sample of the Italian deaths (355 out of 2003 total deaths at the time of the report). I got it, and the numbers are very revealing.
Let me start with the age distribution of the 2,003 Italians who had died at the time of the report. Figure 2 shows that it’s almost entirely old people.
Figure 2. Age of 2,003 Italians who had COVID-19 at the time of death.
Out of the 2,003 deaths, seventeen were people under fifty, and only 5 people under thirty died, while almost two hundred deaths were of people over 90. I’d read that the people dying in Italy were old, but I didn’t realize quite how old they actually are …
One thing I learned on this voyage was that the Italians distinguished between dying FROM the virus on the one hand, and dying WITH the virus on the other. Once I looked at the state of health of the Italian victims, however, I could see why they had to do that. Figure 3 shows the generous apportionment of serious diseases and conditions among the unfortunates.
Figure 3. Numbers of diseases in the sample of 355 Italians who had COVID-19 at the time of their death.
WOW! Yeah, they all had COVID-19. But three-quarters of them also had hypertension, a third had diabetes, a third had ischemic heart disease, a quarter of them had atrial fibrillation tossing clots into the bloodstream, and so on down the list.
As you can see from Figure 3, some people must have had more than one other disease besides COVID-19. Figure 4 shows the breakdown of the number of other diseases per patient.
Figure 4. Other diseases (comorbidities) of a sample of 355 of the 2,003 Italians who had COVID-19 at the time of their death.
For me, this was the most surprising finding of the entire study. Of all 355 people who died, only three did not have any of the diseases listed above. Three!
Looking at all of this as a whole picture, I had a curious thought about who they were representing. I thought … consider the characteristics of the people who died:
- More of the patients were over 90 than were under 60.
- The average age was 79 years.
- All but three of them had at least one other disease, so basically all of them were already sick.
- Three-quarters of them had two other diseases, and half of them had three or more other diseases. Half!
My thought was … that’s not a sample of the people in the street. That’s not a sample of an Italian family.
That’s a sample of a totally different population.
I was forced to a curious conclusion, both discouraging and encouraging. It is that most of these diseases were probably not community-acquired. Instead, I would hazard a guess that most of them go by the curious name of “nosocomial” infections, viz:
nos·o·co·mi·al
/ˌnōzōˈkōmēəl/
adjective MEDICINE
(of a disease) originating in a hospital.
Here’s what I suspect. I think that the COVID-19 disease got established in a couple of areas in Italy well before anyone even knew the disease was there, perhaps even before the Chinese recognized it as a novel disease.
And in some fashion, it got into the medical system. Doesn’t matter how. But once there, it was spread invisibly to other patients, in particular the oldest and weakest of the patients. It went from patient to patient, from patient to visitor and back again, and it was also spread by everyone in the hospital from administrators to doctors and nurses to janitors. In many, perhaps most cases, they didn’t even know they were sick, but they were indeed infectious.
And that’s why the pattern of the Italian deaths is so curious, and their number is so much larger than the rest of the world. It’s not a cross-section of the general population. It’s a cross-section of people who were already quite sick, sick enough that they were already visiting doctors and having procedures or being bedridden in hospitals. It was 85-year-olds with three diseases.
And it’s also why the death rate in Italy is so high—these people were already very ill. I can see why the Italians are distinguishing between dying FROM the virus and dying WITH the virus.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
As I said, this is both discouraging and encouraging. It’s discouraging because getting the virus out of a modern medical facility and a dispersed medical system isn’t easy. Italy has a big job ahead. And it’s discouraging because it means that the medical personnel who are so needed for the fight are getting the disease as well. Very likely they won’t die from it, but they will be hors de combat for three weeks or so. No bueno.
On the other hand, it is encouraging in a couple of aspects.
First, it lets us know what we need to do to prevent the Italian outcome. We have to, must, keep the virus out the medical system.
- We need to seriously quarantine the sufferers away from other sick people.
- We need to set up testing facilities at all medical centers and test the medical personnel daily.
- In areas with a number of COVID-19 infections, we need to set up separate field hospitals. There are a number of commercial versions of these that are expandable by adding modules, and are pathogen-tight, with airlocks at the doors, HEPA exhaust filters and negative air pressure maintained throughout. We know how to do this stuff, we’ve just got to do it.
- We need to test in-hospital patients at the time of their arrival and continue to test them at intervals during their stay.
- We’ll have to be very careful with visitors to patients in the hospitals
It’s a big job, and we absolutely have to do it.
Second, it cautions us to not claim that everyone who tests positively for COVID-19 after death actually died FROM the disease. They may very well have died WITH the disease.
Finally, the other reason it’s encouraging that Italy’s infection is likely nosocomial is that it removes Italy as the mysterious bogeyman of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, it points to just what we have to do.
IF (and it’s a big if) we take the proper precautions to protect our vulnerable medical system and personnel, I don’t think that the US will get as high a death rate as Italy has today.
Note that this makes me seriously question the idea of “flattening the curve” … if you let the virus into your hospitals and medical system you’re toast, no matter how flat the curve is.
So let’s end this crazy American lockdown, there’s a whole raft of work to be done shoring up our medical sector to withstand the coming wave, and it can’t be done at home with our heads in the sand, hundreds of thousands of people not working, jobs disappearing daily, and our economy in a shambles …
My very best regards to all, stay well in these parlous times,
w.
As Usual: I ask that when you comment, QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU’RE DISCUSSING. Knowing who and what you’re referring to avoids endless misunderstandings and arguments.
[UPDATE]: Just after publishing this, I was reading about loss of the senses of smell and taste being symptoms of coronavirus infection. In the article, I found this:
Hopkins says an Italian doctor shared that “he and many of his colleagues had lost their sense of smell while working in northern Italy dealing with COVID-19 patients.”
… “many of his colleagues”. Kinda support my theory of nosocomial infection in Italy.
[UPDATE 2]: In the news today, the headline Coronavirus: 4,824 Italian Health Workers Are Infected … one in ten of their coronavirus cases are health workers …
[UPDATE 3]: Here’s a graph showing just how different Italy is from the other countries with numbers of cases …
PS—Let me take this opportunity to provide a wider readership to a comment that my obstropulous (yes, it’s a real word) good friend Steve Mosher posted on my blog yesterday. He’s living in Korea and has been a close observer of just how they are succeeding in controlling the virus. He spells out the level and the details of what we have to do. His comment is below, my thanks to him.The key is changing the criteria for testing. Here [in Korea] we test and track.
An employee of a call center in Seoul, was infected.
Office had 207 people.
March 8th. he tested positive.
EVERY person in that office was tested. today 152 have tested positive, they tested floors above and below his floor. Today 3 more from the 11th floor were found and 1 contact.
They are now tracing the contact, and the contact’s contacts. All will be tested. The business was in a residential building. 553 of the people in that building were tested. floors 13-18
This little beastie lives on surfaces for up to 3 days. See that elevator button? the hand rail on the stairs? the bathroom door handle? the coffee cup that pretty girl behind the counter handed you? it’s there. Now in my building we have hand sanitizer by the elevator buttons. you get in the habit of not touching public pretty quickly. Trust me I am not a germ phobe, but the changes have been simple when they are reinforced.
Let me give you a little taste of the highly detailed info we get.
Info that is shared daily in one spot, I will include some of the earlier call center case snippits
“In Daegu, every person at high-risk facilities is being tested. 87 percent completed testing and 192 (0.8 percent) out of 25,493 were confirmed positive. From Daesil Covalescent Hospital in Dalseong-gun, 54 additional cases were confirmed, which brings the current total to 64. In-patients on 6th and 7th floors are under cohort-quarantine.”
“From Guro-gu call center in Seoul, 7 additional cases (11th floor = 2; contacts = 5) were confirmed. The current total is 146 confirmed cases since 8 March. (11th floor = 89; 10th floor = 1; 9th floor = 1; contacts = 54)”
“From Bundang Jesaeng Hospital in Gyeonggi Province, 4 additional cases were confirmed. The current total of 35 confirmed cases since 5 March (20 staff, 5 patients in inpatient care, 2 discharged patients, 4 guardians of patients, 4 contacts outside the hospital). The 144 staff members who were found to have visited the hospital’s Wing no. 81 (where many confirmed cases emerged) were tested, 3 of whom tested positive.”
“Five additional confirmed cases have been reported from the call center located in Guro-gu, Seoul, amounting to a current total of 129 confirmed cases from the call center since 8 March. As of now, 14 confirmed cases in Gyeonggi Province has been traced to have come in contact with a confirmed patient who is a worker at the 11th floor call center at a religious gathering. Further investigation and tracing are underway.”
Test, Trace, Test more.
A random test in Iceland found 1% infected. 50% asymptomatic.
If the US persists in only testing the symptomatic you won’t squash this bug.
Our cases are going up in Seoul. So we will have 15 days of voluntary social distancing.
go to work
stay away from crowds
wash your hands
wear a mask
don’t touch your face
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Public opnion polls on Trump’s handling of Wuhan virus since March 17:
Gallup 3/13 – 3/22 1020 A 60 38 +22
ABC News/Ipsos 3/18 – 3/19 512 A 55 43 +12
Emerson 3/18 – 3/19 1100 RV 49 41 +8
Axios-Harris 3/17 – 3/18 2019 A 56 44 +12
Averages: Approve 55%, Disapprove 41.5%, for Spread of +13.5 points.
The Italian and most Western hospital responses has been very disjointed and poor.
Full glove and gowning and isolation for all suspected cases from unprotected hospital staff is essential.
Have taken my wife to an Italian hospital for a CT following a fall, excellent treatment. Have Italian friends who have described hospital Inpatient care there.
Not good.
Under resourced.
Q. Where is the best hospital in Italy?
A Geneva.
But that is in Switzerland?
Trump’s overall approval job rating has also improved:
Gallup 3/13 – 3/22 1020 A 49 45 +4
The Hill/HarrisX 3/22 – 3/23 1002 RV 50 50 Tie
Monmouth 3/18 – 3/22 754 RV 48 48 Tie
Rasmussen Reports 3/19 – 3/23 1500 LV 46 52 -6
Emerson 3/18 – 3/19 1100 RV 46 45 +1
Average almost positive, and would be but for the Rasmussen outlier, which is of Likely Voters, so its system of picking those might have skewed results over RVs (Emerson and Monmouth) and All Adults (Gallup).
Willis,
This is absolutely priceless information. Packed into a nutshell. I was really puzzling death rates in Italy vs Germany. The death rate in Italy is far higher than in Germany.
Smoking? Nope. Italian smoking rate = 24%, German smoking rate = 30%. The only realistic thing I could think of was social customs (you won’t find any website on “How to do the German cheek kiss” ;-)):
https://www.thelocal.it/20170706/how-to-do-the-italian-cheek-kiss-greeting-italy
But this shows that, at least in this sample, the people in Italy who died simply had very little time left anyway.
Your graphs are tremendously informative, too. Thanks for all your great work on COVID-19 (and climate change, too)!
Nice work Willis.
But.
Looking at death rates on a national level can be misleading.
A few days back Willis looked at Korea and predicted a Case peak at 8100.
I explained why this was wrong, and now we are 9000+ ( headed to 10K probably)
he predicted a death total of 100.
I explained why this was wrong and why we would go to at least 150. We are at 120, now.
The reason is that infection is Local and not spatially uniform. What I could see that he could
not is surging cases in two regions of Korea. In spatial terms the case incidence has a high
spatial frequency. Clusters. so area averaging is much more complicated.
This is the same reason why rainfall is hard to ‘average’ over wide areas. Downpours. Downpours
lead to floods, damns overflowing and all that nasty stuff. very local. very local and broad area
averages can deceive you
How does this relate to death rates?
Well death rates are also local, You can think of it this way. The death rate for a given location
is probably going to be a function of.
1. The demographics.
2. The prevalence of co morbidities in that population
3. The quality of the medical care in that exact location
4. The AVAILABILITY of the medical care in that exact location
Do you get a flood that overruns your hospital? very hard to predict, and uncertainty is not your
friend
So your death rate on the diamond princess may be X due to adequate high quality medical care
and low prevalence of co comorbidities, while your death rate in Italy may be different, due to
demographics and high co comorbidities, and swamped hospitals.
Averaging over large areas will of course obscure these important differences.
The bottom line is your risk is personal, not simply because death is personal, but because
where you live, the exact city, will change your risk profile. When the risk is highly personal
of course people’s reaction to risk will differ wildly. If you are young with no co-morbidities
of course you will party at spring break. If you are an old diabetic living in a place with little health care
of course your risk is different.
This difference in risk profiles will result in people looking at data differently.
weeks ago when the USA stood at zero deaths and 68 cases someone on WUWT asked me what the us death rate was. my response? “somebody doesn’t understand statistics” I’ll stand by that answer weeks later.
Of course you can calculate an average death rate, but it’s pretty much meaningless. The national USA death rate tells you nothing about your personal risk. And it tells you nothing about the risk you pose to others.
any way, look at your hands. Assume they are lethal weapons and wash them, if not for your own good,
do it for others.
Not a germ phone, ask CTM
Thanks, Mosh. About my only disagreement is when you say:
Of course it says nothing about your personal risk—that depends on how often you wash your hands, touch your face, or have sex with bats.
What the average death rate IS useful for is seeing whether your medical system is likely to get overrun, and how soon. For example:
That tells us how soon it is possible that our medical system will be stressed. From that, on given trends, we can see that Washington, despite having more deaths per capita than New York has, won’t be in trouble until well after the crunch hits New York and Louisiana. It also shows that California is much further from the crunch than I had feared.
That’s valuable data to have.
My best regards to you, stay well,
w.
In Korea, about 85% of all cases are in one region: in and around the city Daegu. Not surprisingly, this is where most of the 126 people have died. The number of cases is indeed still growing. However, in the past few days most new cases are imported cases and close family members of these imported cases.
I am sure that the number of new cases and the number of people who die with the virus will increase in Korea.
According to the media, the number of critical cases and severe cases has roughly been 90 for about a 10 days. This is a relatively low number of cases compared to Italy and other countries. I would be interested to hear people’s opinion on this difference.
Good video.
“Looking at death rates on a national level can be misleading.”
Looking at cases rates on a national level can be misleading too.
As an example, there are about 69,000 cases in Italy. The population of Italy is about 60.5 million.
That is about 0.1%
There are about 30,700 cases in Lombardy. The population is about 10 million.
that is about 0.3%
We could zoom in further, to Bergamo, population 1.1 million. About 2500 cases (old number).
which is about 0.2%
And it goes the other way too.
Molise has 73 cases, about 300,000 people.
0.02%
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1099375/coronavirus-cases-by-region-in-italy/
People look at those low numbers and think that it doesn’t matter what they do. Wrong.
It is a gamble. Sometimes you win (you don’t meet that carrier), sometimes you lose (when you do meet him). Don’t shake hands and wash your hands. You never know. If the virus spreads, we all lose.
Daily new cases in South Korea. Well done! Way to go!
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1102777/south-korea-covid-19-daily-new-cases/
How physical distancing compliance affects the virus. 70% is not good enough.
Thanks Willis, agree 100%, and appreciate so much your articles.
Thank you Willis, appreciate all you are doing:))
“From Guro-gu call center in Seoul, 2 additional cases (2 contacts under self-quarantine) were confirmed. The current total is 158 confirmed cases since 8 March. (11th floor = 94; 10th floor = 2; 9th floor = 1; contacts = 61)”
1 guy in a company of 207, call center
Note the spread outside the company.
Outstanding work Willis. Do your numbers take into consideration that the elderly in Italy are not offered ventilator support because the health system is so overwhelmed? Ventilators are only offered to younger patients with fewer comorbidities. The old are basically left to fend for themselves, with resultant higher mortality. This would seem to to skew Italy’s statistics. Perhaps the elderly death rate would be better if ventilators were more available.
Thanks Willis and Mosh.
So global average death rate is about as meaningful as global average temperature.
Funny that.
wrong. temperature is more predictable. Low spatial frequency.
testable.
wrong deaths are fungible .
Arrg
Korea cases continue to be recorded. As in China the vast majority are IMPORTS
Nationals returning to korea
Same in China
I’ll have to look at the exact numbers but it gives you an idea of the attack rate.
put 1000 people from the US on planes to Korea
How many show up with the critter?
Also note you are not getting on the plane with a fever, so these imports are asymptomatic.
Steven Mosher March 24, 2020 at 7:12 pm
. . . writes about geography
In the Seattle area (Kirkland) the virus was there and being spread by all manner of folks before they knew anything.
The officials have taken this unique situation and applied it as a template to the entire State. Across the State, all that can be has been closed.
Testing has still not ramped up. It is being directed toward medics and other responders. That’s fine, but doesn’t do much good for everyone else, and those not in the local Seattle area.
“So let’s end this crazy American lockdown”
Wilis, I draw your attentiuon to this paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.10218.pdf
Not even peer-reviewed yet but from it’s data comes the money graph:
It suggests ending the “lockdown” should not be done in haste.
Thanks, Loydo. Depends on what they’re calling “compliance”. I doubt that in the US we’re achieving 50% of whatever it is … subways, service stations, airplanes, grocery stores …
w.
Where are the error margins on those predicted curves?
In terms of wanton extrapolation from limited data I had to pinch myself.
Just like Climate Change!
A lot of people are in denial here.
Well COVID-19 denial has a Darwinian corollary.
Be the first one in the block to have your mom leave home in a box!
Willis there is a BIG PROBLEM with your analysis.
Do a search on the rules of who gets a ventilator in Italy given there are not enough.
It become obvious why the figures get heavily distorted … because if you have an underlying condition or are over 60 you don’t get ventillation.
LdB:
Your lazy note does not do anything to refute anything in Willis’ analysis. Geeze have some manners.
LdB, that’s happening now. The study was done when there were only about a third of the deaths we have now.
w.
Sorry Willis I don’t read Italian you probably need to spell that out more. You could tell me that your report link said literally anything it is all pretty meaningless to me.
Maybe we should make things touched by many people out of copper and bronze and silver again especially in hospitals.
Report shows up to 88% of Italy’s alleged Covid19 deaths could be misattributed
“The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus […] On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three,”
– Professor Walter Ricciardi, scientific adviser to Italy’s minister of health
Report in English:
https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Report-COVID-2019_20_marzo_eng.pdf
Yes but that is pretty typical. We rarely put flu on the death cert. as cause of death either, which is why it has to be determined statistically as “excess deaths” at the end of the flu season.
Certainly there are differences from country to country, what is more worrying is inconsistency within the same country from day to day , week to week.
It’s pretty hard to asses the progress when they clearly keep moving the goal posts. Or like in Britain they have not even worked out where the goal posts are supposed to go.
For weeks Germany reported a tiny number in critical condition, and a far larger number of deaths every day.
Now suddenly Germany has over 1500 people in critical condition.
This is obviously because the reporting has changed, not the number of people in critical condition.
Deaths per day continue to increase there, as in most countries.
Another thing, as a result of austerity measures Italy has far fewer ICU beds per capita than US. Up to 5 times less. As mention by earlier commenters, many older and already sick people are not being treated.
One thing people dont understand, nationalized health systems are about providing preventive health care, they are pretty bad at sick care . The US system does an awful job with health care, but if you are really sick and can afford it or willing to go bankrupt to live a few months/years longer, there is no better place to be sick.
Also, given the high death rates among mediterranean peoples (Iran, Italy , France, Spain) one wonders if there is a genetic/epigenetic factor at play
re: “The US system does an awful job with health care ..”
STILL waiting for actual examples of this, because, this has NOT been my experience with a past case of pneumonia, a bicycle accident (picked up by medics unconscious off the road), a MC accident (minor pelvis fracture) and years later blindness due to cataracts (remedied by surgery!) …
Mine either.
Our health care system is fantastic.
Some people seem to conflate health insurance or various systems of payment with “care”.
W,
Please add to your graph #1 the morbidity/mortality from hospital infections.
From: https://patientcarelink.org/improving-patient-care/healthcare-acquired-infections-hais/
“In American hospitals alone, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that HAIs account for an estimated 1.7 million infections and 99,000 associated deaths each year.”
Thanks
Understanding the LOCAL nature of the problem
and why national stats will mislead you
https://youtu.be/jqgINxGQB5w?t=291
have fun
The differential equations shown are simply under damped. If you increase the damping they end up looking a lot like the SIR model shown.
I doubt any of those simple models have any mechanism to account for changing inputs like social adaptation, confinement etc. The are just a creative process fighting a decay process.
re: “simple models … mechanism to account for changing inputs … social adaptation, confinement etc. ”
Does anybody remember the “object lesson” imparted by the failure of LTCM (Long Term Capital Management)? Probably not … all the King’s horses and all the King’s PhD ‘quants’ could not keep Humpty Dumpty profitable in the market …
“I doubt any of those simple models have any mechanism to account for changing inputs like social adaptation, confinement etc. The are just a creative process fighting a decay process.”
Ya Think?
that’s why its a simple model!
Imagine that in this science field there are 100 people half as smart as you.
what do you think they would do?
Is half as smart the same as twice as stupid?
Seriously not sure what that even means.
“First, it lets us know what we need to do to prevent the Italian outcome. We have to, must, keep the virus out the medical system. ”
A good portion of our cases in Korea are traced to medical facilities.
Young people are less likely to die that’s right. But it is hard to get numbers how many are hospitalized, need ventilators for their treatment and for how long. All these factors determine the overload of the system and even if the percentages are low in the group 40y> a high infection rate could easily tip the balance.
The main co-morbidities obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure are not that rare in the American population. I wouldn’t be so relaxed.
Just one little comment. In Italy they are sending people above 70 home to die. You don’t have chance for ICU bed if you are above 70. This corresponds nicely with your graph.
In Italy no sick person is sent home to die (even now with the curse of COVID-19). Even older patients. Even these days.
Sorry, you are right. Not sending home. Just giving sedatives and keeping rest on nature. This is not from my head, but from italian doctor. They are using war codex to triage patients.
Hold up guys.
Thanks Willis for acquainting us with this exhaustive documentation on the suicidal folly the USA, Canada, France, and Italy have embarked on. Thanks also to the “Swiss doctor” who compiled this evidence. I believe I’ve followed more links from this one report than I normally do in a year of browsing.
Happily, most of the links were readily accessible, and only a few demanded removal of adblockers.
My only suggestion for improvement to the presentation would be to flag the language requirements of the various links (mostly German, with Italian a distant second)
I was particularly impressed by the video of Professor Sucharit Bhakdi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBB9bA-gXL4
which, although spoken in German, had very clear English captions.
What bothers me most about this situation, other than the likely collapse of the global economy due to the interruption of international trade and travel, is that I cannot imagine that the supposedly all-knowing intelligence services of Nato failed to draw the same conclusions and warn their governments against the draconian measures underway.
This kills a lot of old people.
Who has the power and the money in our civilization?
Do you think this was done to protect some people in nursing homes?
The other aspect of this socio-economic buffalo jump that intrigues me is – who is going to lend four essentially bankrupt countries (the four above -mentioned ones) trillions of dollars, and why? And beyond that, what will be the global effect of the USA defaulting on its debts? Will this be the end of the US Dollar as the world currency? And who will own and control the industrial and transport infrastructures of the USA, Canada, France and Italy afterward?
I believe we are witnessing the first global human engineering project. One can only speculate as to its intended goal, and whether it is progressing as designed or has gone off the rails. But it appears to me that it has already irreversably weakened the power of Nato vis a vis Russia, China, and the rest of the world.
Hopefully Nato will accept this defeat gracefully and not plunge the world into a global nuclear conflict to reassert itself.
There’s another reason why people with co-morbidities are dying at higher rate in Italy.
The hospitals are so over-run that doctors are having to prioritise who to treat. People with lower chances of survival (age, other illnesses) are being denied treatment because there are not enough ventilators to go round.
In UK treatments for other conditions are being held back because of demands on hospitals. For instance a lot of chemotherapy treatments have been postponed or cancelled.