My god that's a dumb response.
Anyway, my actual error was in supposing that the definition of urban was standardised. It isn't - so countries can't really be compared using that metric.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
My god that's a dumb response.
Anyway, my actual error was in supposing that the definition of urban was standardised. It isn't - so countries can't really be compared using that metric.
What was your point with it then Ekkie?
My original point that’s been responded to so often here was simply that Sweden is nothing like Italy in terms of how many people live on top of each other and in close populations. I even added the fact that we very rarely live at home with parents or even flat share, the statistics that even you sent show that there are 34 million more Italians living in close urbanized areas, so what was your point with that statistic?
Italy has a population of over 60m people. Sweden has just over 10m, or 1/6th of the population. If you wanted to use number of cities as a comparison (which you shouldn't because its terrible), Sweden would have 54 cities over 100,000 with a comparable population.
Number of cities is kind of dumb though as everything above 100,000 is treated the same. Rural population percentage is a much better metric. In Sweden in 2015 only 14% of people lived in rural areas. In Italy that figure is 29.56%.
Basically yes you have a vast amount of landmass, but most people aren't living out there, the vast majority are in the south and tend to be congregated in and around the cities. You're quite right about the culture stuff though.
But anyway this isn't the right thread for stuff like this. Let's leave it here.
So if 6 million people die in Italy but ALL of Norway’s 5,5 million die, you’d say that Italy’s situation is worse than ours?
Your reasoning is weird as feck, dude.
I'm going to try educate myself on diagnostic tests for viral infections but in other diagnostic fields tests are not even close to 100% accurate. Some of the most used cancer tests are woeful and can be in the 70% range depending on the population. I'm really intrigued how these tests are developed and validated. From what I can gather it must be a totally different exercise to the cancer tests. We always have to prove accuracy of the entire process (e.g. blood draw to analysis to report) versus a gold standard (e.g. surgically confirmed cancer vs benign condition). I'm almost positive none of the tests released have done that from start (swab) to finish (report). Off the top of my head I can think of many things that could interfere with test performance that couldn't possibly have been tested yet.
On the way out of Thailand, they tested my temperature just before I entered airport. There was an army soldier standing nearby.
If I had a temperature above a certain number (not sure what that is), they wouldn't have let me travel, and would probably have sent me to a 'Government facility' to be quarantined. Which I was surprised by, as surely most countries want non citizens to go home, so they can concentrate helping their own.
Not sure if that is happening at UK airports for outbound international flights.
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Hmm...! Ventilators that later can be turned into something else, Dyson maybe on to something there.
Why on earth would we want to show the benefits of the EU? Surely doing so would be a fate much worse than death? I'm sure given the offer of a ventilator acquired due to out EU membership, most asphyxiating gammon would stubbornly turn it down in favour of an honourable death.
Probably some of their own citizens either working on the planes or having to use them for essential travel. Also maybe they're not total dicks who only care about their own population?
What the feck are you on about man
My reasoning is simple, that with 34 more million people living in Italy in urbanized areas than Sweden then the risk of this virus spreading as quickly as it did in Italy and as disastrously, including the culture differences is enourmous compared to Sweden.
What the feck are you on about man
My reasoning is simple, that with 34 more million people living in Italy in urbanized areas than Sweden then the risk of this virus spreading as quickly as it did in Italy and as disastrously, including the culture differences is enourmous compared to Sweden.
You seem to just be ignoring that with your much smaller population you have far fewer people for it to actually spread to. And the people you do have mostly live quite close together geographically.
Yeah but having 42 towns with over 100,000 people living in them is a bigger problem here. There's a reason London is the epicentre in the UK.
The smaller the areas and towns (less populated), the less likely a disastrous rate of spread. Italy just has an outrageous amount more potential hot spots. And their culture of living with parents, living with Grandma etc makes it doubly worse as they take the brunt of the ICU.
My point was actually made moot by the difference in definitions, not by your calculation that (wait for it) Italy has a larger population. Taking your argument to its logical conclusion would imply that even if everyone in Sweden lived in one flat they'd still not be living on top of each other as much as the Italians. That's daft.
Your talking absolute numbers when it's obvious that we're dealing in proportions. If the definitions were standard (my error) and 70% of Italians live in towns while 80% of Swedes do then proportionally more Swedes live on top of each other than do Italians. Number of cities and overall population size would be irrelevant to that fact.
You're right that the average household size is about 10-20% larger in Italy.
What the feck are you on about man
My reasoning is simple, that with 34 more million people living in Italy in urbanized areas than Sweden then the risk of this virus spreading as quickly as it did in Italy and as disastrously, including the culture differences is enourmous compared to Sweden.
I’ve not touched on culture, and the fact that the elder more often live in with their relatives, those are fair points, but the spread doesn’t have to be as crazy to cover fewer people. I don’t think that point is as strong as you think it is. A bigger percentage of Swedes live in cities than do Italians.
So you disagree that 42 towns with 100,000 or more are more likely to be virus hot spots than 9?
Of that Italy with a 65+ population of 13.76m is on a completely different level to Sweden when it comes to risk groups and ICU requirements? Sweden has 2m.
In much smaller towns though, that's the difference, and the towns are more spread out.
Italy was a ticking time bomb with the age demographic and this virus, coupled with their population and culture. That anyone is even trying to put forward an argument to my statement that Sweden will absolutely not go like Italy due to a tonne of reasons is beyond daft.
In Lombardy alone they have the population of Sweden and people over 65 years old represent the 21.6% of that population.
That's more +65's than ALL OF SWEDEN, just in Lombardy. But do carry on folk, you absolute nutters.
I’d agree that you guys aren’t in danger of going the way of Italy, so don’t get me wrong on that point. But I do think you’re overestimating just how much the spread is contained merely by it being less dense. That’s all I was speaking to.
You are wrong here. It's a density thing, it's about the combination of space and population. It's not about overall population but population per square meter in a given area. For example Milan is a very dense area and is therefore a very risky one. Regarding the debate that you are having, you all need to scale it down and look at each urban areas individually, they are not all equal and can't really be averaged when you are talking about a potential spread or the consequence of an outbreak on the health structure because these things regionalized.
What the feck are you on about man
My reasoning is simple, that with 34 more million people living in Italy in urbanized areas than Sweden then the risk of this virus spreading as quickly as it did in Italy and as disastrously, including the culture differences is enourmous compared to Sweden.
You’re confusing total with proportion. Hospital capacity etc is calculated as a proportion of the population. Just because Italy has a larger total number of people in cities does not mean the proportional spread within the population will be higher than Sweden (independent from number of social contacts). And it’s the proportional rather than the total spread which is important in regards to health care. Italy has 6 times the population but 6 times the hospital capacity compared to Sweden.
But nevertheless the other factors you mention will probably result in a less damaging epidemic within Sweden compared to Italy.
Trying to find some humor in this miserable world
Silver linings.
Sweden looks like a limp dick
Also, further to my previous post about the UK refusing to take up the offer of EU ventilator purchasing
About those dyson ventilators
About those dyson ventilators
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospital_beds
It's from 2017, but Sweden's (ICU) bed numbers per capita are way lower than most, including Italy. In the end it's all relative and most curves from western countries look pretty similar.
It's from 2017, but Sweden's (ICU) bed numbers per capita are way lower than most, including Italy. In the end it's all relative and most curves from western countries look pretty similar.
I'm not having the argument any longer JP, Lombardy, with a land mass of
The original Spanner comparison to experts thinking Sweden may go the way of Italy is utter utter tosh. Simples, why is it even an argument?
I'll say it again, in Lombardy alone they have a higher population of all of Sweden and people over 65 years old represent the 21.6% of that population. That's more +65's than ALL OF SWEDEN, just in Lombardy. Lombardy, with a land mass of 23,844 km has a bigger population than all of Sweden and more over 65+ than's the entire country of Sweden.
That's my last down the rabbit hole post on this. My original post was simply to say Spanner was talking tosh and somehow it's lead to this bizarre deabte.
We have the ability to instantly double it though, and with the exhibition centre being turned into a field hospital it'll be many more soon.
In a Gallup poll, 60% approve of Trumps coronavirus response, 38% disapprove.
From 13-22 March, 49% approve of his job performance, 45% disapprove.
Can someone explain this to me please before I lose all fecking hope for the US? Is Gallup particularly bias towards Trump?
From 13-22 March, 49% approve of his job performance, 45% disapprove.
Can someone explain this to me please before I lose all fecking hope for the US? Is Gallup particularly bias towards Trump?
how China is combatting the Corona virus. Incredible use of technology and big data. 8 min video.
not really
Jonathan Pie: LOCKDOWN episode 2
I agree with you that differences in social makeup and interaction probably puts Italy more at risk than Sweden, but that has nothing to do with your above argument.
Proportionally speaking and all else being equal yes I disagree that 42 towns with 100k inhabitants are more likely to be virus hotspots than 9. Each of these towns and their inhabitants are at a similar level of risk. I do think that your cities are less population dense and maybe less interactive so in that sense your cities are at lower risk, but not simply because they are fewer in number. 30% of your population live in them while only 20% of Italians live in towns of over 100k people.
If your 65+ figures are correct then Sweden has about 20% of its population over 65 and italy has about 23% or so. Again then, all else being equal yes, I would disagree that Italy is on a completely different level to Sweden when it comes to at risk groups. From that stat alone Italy could be said to be a bit more at risk, but certainly not at another level.
Also, I posted earlier this morning with the newsnight statement of death numbers and the government changing how they are counted.
From the Guardian live blog, this is the explanantion from the government spokesman to the lobby journalists
"The spokesman confirmed that the way UK coronavirus deaths are recorded and made public is changing (see 11.07am), but he was unable to give details of how. He said Public Health England is moving to a different reporting time. Yesterday was “a cross-over day” in the way they were recording the numbers, he said. But he was unable to explain what would change. "
You can't plot progression curves with UK data any more, todays numbers are not comparable to Mondays.
From the Guardian live blog, this is the explanantion from the government spokesman to the lobby journalists
"The spokesman confirmed that the way UK coronavirus deaths are recorded and made public is changing (see 11.07am), but he was unable to give details of how. He said Public Health England is moving to a different reporting time. Yesterday was “a cross-over day” in the way they were recording the numbers, he said. But he was unable to explain what would change. "
You can't plot progression curves with UK data any more, todays numbers are not comparable to Mondays.
I see the WTO are forecasting a bigger world recession and job losses greater than 2008. What a surprise. It may we’ll be that the cure turns out to be worse than the disease. After all the disadvantaged can only be helped if governments the world over have resources yet the way we are currently going virtually every developed country might be bankrupt
Wow, the difference between some European countries is crazy. 15.9 ICU beds in Belgium (and capacity has been increased massively in the last 2 weeks), only 6.4 in the Netherlands. Does anyone have an explanation for that?
When one region of Italy, Lombardy, has a higher population and more 65´s than all of Sweden... of course it's on a different level.
How?
Sweden also have measures built into the system to prevent disease spreading in the first place such as sick pay you can actually live on and temporary paid parental leave to care for sick children. Most employers encourage people to stay home if they are not well.
The idea everything is as normal in sweden now is BS, there is a clear strategy with systematic responses. It could of course still spiral out of control.
The idea everything is as normal in sweden now is BS, there is a clear strategy with systematic responses. It could of course still spiral out of control.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=File:Population_age_structure_by_major_age_groups,_2008_and_2018_(%_of_the_total_population).png
65+ year olds in:
Italy: 22.6%
Sweden: 19.8%
I'm not sure that makes a huge difference. And even if (going by 2017 numbers linked earlier) Sweden were to double their ICU beds instantly, then their per capita count would still be below that of Italy. And in general: putting a bunch of field beds into a festival hall doesn't equal ICU beds, those need ventilators and other really expensive equipment (as well as trained people to operate them) - you can't just pull them out of thin air.
65+ year olds in:
Italy: 22.6%
Sweden: 19.8%
I'm not sure that makes a huge difference. And even if (going by 2017 numbers linked earlier) Sweden were to double their ICU beds instantly, then their per capita count would still be below that of Italy. And in general: putting a bunch of field beds into a festival hall doesn't equal ICU beds, those need ventilators and other really expensive equipment (as well as trained people to operate them) - you can't just pull them out of thin air.
Cases: 56,188 (+8.578)
Cases in ICU: 3.679 (+513)
Deaths: 4.089 (+655)
Recovered: 7.015 (+1.648)
Spain have upped the testing.
UK was ahead of France and Spain in testing but won't be for long if not behind now. France going up from 2-2.5k per day to 19k and 29k per day. UK's 20-25kper day still hasn't happened.
Cases in ICU: 3.679 (+513)
Deaths: 4.089 (+655)
Recovered: 7.015 (+1.648)
Spain have upped the testing.
UK was ahead of France and Spain in testing but won't be for long if not behind now. France going up from 2-2.5k per day to 19k and 29k per day. UK's 20-25kper day still hasn't happened.