As an Italian living in one of the red areas I feel it's pretty hard to do better than Italy in the west if you are hit first
South Korea had Seegen almost single handedly testing the population, China is not a standard of what a liberal democracy can do
We did everything we could, I've been staying home for 3 weeks as of now, but we couldn't predict the virus spreading from the hospitals of small cities hitting hard on the elderly population
80% of the deaths are >75, 98% are >65, the avreage age of the deceased is 79.4 years old but if we look only at women their average age was 84.2 years (South Korea life expectancy is 82 years) and we counted every death as a coronavirus related death if the patient tested positive, but most of them died for pre-existing conditions, while other countries are not counting them if other conditions where already present (and I imagine old people at the hospital are there because they are already ill)
So I must say that despite our own indiscipline, bad luck was a very strong factor in what happened
BTW Spain is already looking worse than us at their same day
Where we can do better than Italy is learning from your experience and taking measures earlier: we aren't first.
Even measures less aggressive than your lockdowns would be more effective if they were simply taken earlier.
This isn't a criticism of Italy. Getting the political will to shut things down when there are few cases and no deaths is extremely hard. But the experience of Italy is showing all of us what our unwillingness to do so will cause.
But I bet nobody will, because you know nobody wants a lynch mob looking for them
UK is still having giant music shows with thousands of people, Germany is not counting people with previous conditions, France had even a smurf convention (sigh!)
We all have a family member living in one of the EU countries and are all calling home sick worried because nobody is doing anything because “The Italians, any old excuse to, you know, shut down everything and stop work for a bit and have a long siesta.” (it's not a joke, a British TV personality really said that)
So maybe be like Italy and not like everybody else this time.
Seriously, I've been confined 3 weeks and am fine, but my friends calling me from abroad are crying for help, because they want to come back, but can't.
South Korea had Seegen almost single handedly testing the population, China is not a standard of what a liberal democracy can do
We did everything we could, I've been staying home for 3 weeks as of now, but we couldn't predict the virus spreading from the hospitals of small cities hitting hard on the elderly population
80% of the deaths are >75, 98% are >65, the avreage age of the deceased is 79.4 years old but if we look only at women their average age was 84.2 years (South Korea life expectancy is 82 years) and we counted every death as a coronavirus related death if the patient tested positive, but most of them died for pre-existing conditions, while other countries are not counting them if other conditions where already present (and I imagine old people at the hospital are there because they are already ill)
So I must say that despite our own indiscipline, bad luck was a very strong factor in what happened
BTW Spain is already looking worse than us at their same day