Milan Staggers as Hospitals Fill Up
In Italy’s Second Wave, Hospitals Fill and Crematories Cannot Keep up.
With infections, hospitalizations and deaths linked to Covid-19 rising exponentially, hospitals in Milan are running out of beds even after having converted wards and suspended nonurgent procedures. Ambulances have been forced to wait for hours to drop off patients at hospitals where Covid-19 patients are sometimes kept on gurneys in crowded corridors.
On Friday, the government sealed off Milan and the surrounding Lombardy region, along with three of Italy’s other 20 regions. In these so-called red zones, freedom of movement is severely curtailed, most stores are shut, cafes and restaurants can sell only takeout, and children from the second year of middle school onward have reverted to remote learning. The government said it would assess the situation in two weeks.
A Milan crematory said it couldn’t keep up with the number of deaths and stopped accepting for cremation the bodies of nonresidents who die in the city. A temporary hospital set up in April at Milan’s trade-fair center has reopened.
The Policlinico and Milan’s other hospitals are racing to discharge non-Covid patients as quickly as possible to free up space.
A month ago, Lombardy had just 41 Covid patients in intensive care and 361 occupying non-ICU beds. On Sunday, those numbers had jumped to 650 and 6,225
Daily Confirmed Cases Per Million
Daily Confirmed Deaths Per Million
The world is so ready for a vaccine that works.
Hoping for early 2021 on news Pfizer’s Covid Vaccine is 90% Effective.
Mish
No excess deaths, only a bunch of cremated people falsely tagged “COVID DEATH”
Came here to register and just write that? How … pathetic.
Take a look at the response to this Mish article which is posted on Zerohedge.com
Whew! Hadn’t been there much…for that reason.
This ONE article addresses all the redundant statements that keep popping up in these threads. Read it, learn and stop posing the same old statements.
For Better Health and a Stronger Economy, Don’t Lock Down Again
By Benjamin Powell
November 8, 2020
A second lockdown would smother our economic recovery and only delay the inevitable spread of COVID-19.
European countries are imposing harsh lockdowns again as a second wave of COVID-19 spreads throughout Europe. It was a mistake last spring, when most U.S. states followed Europe’s lead in imposing lockdowns during the first wave, and it would be an even bigger mistake to copy the failed lockdowns again today.
I was stunned when Italy imposed regional lockdowns in late February and a national lockdown on March 9. In short order, most other European countries did the same. Then, influenced by the sensational predictions from Neil Ferguson’s team at Imperial College London that more than 500,000 Britons and 2.2 million Americans might die from the virus, the United Kingdom and most of the United States followed suit.
Panic and herd mentality drove policy making in March, and frightened populations ceded their personal, economic, and religious liberties on a scale unprecedented even during wartimes. With eight months of hindsight, it seems obvious that the lockdowns did more harm than good on a number of accounts.
….
What does Nate Silver say about COVID? What is the probability we all wake up one day dead?
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death
Italy’s COVID fatality rate now is 75% less than April’s.
I live in Melbourne, Australia and we have just entered re-opening the economy after the worlds harshest lockdown. Restaurants and cafes can now re-open under social distancing laws, mask wearing is still mandatory. The curfew has gone, the 25km (formally 5 kn) law on travel has been removed, work permits to travel are gone, police check stations are gone and the State borders are about to reopen.
In the last 2 weeks, 0 cases and 0 deaths.
Check back in a 4-6 weeks. Once you reopen travel, the virus will come back.
I live in California. We also are going backward on the stupid virus scale that our governor and his chief health officer have devised. That means individual counties in the state are dropping back into tiers that will again require more business closures. Lockdowns and masks don’t work long-term. But politicians don’t know what else to do while they wait for that magic vaccine that is going to solve all the problems.
And then what happens when the next virus comes knocking? Repeat the same thing again? I doubt people will put up with repeating this if there aren’t people dying in the streets.
Saying masks don’t work is no longer just wrong…it amounts to deliberate misinformation that could affect the health of other people.
Information that might have made mask wearing questionable six months go was based on information from a variety of studies about masks, none of which was specific to COVID.
Now we have good date that makes it clear that conscientious make wearing protects both the wearer and others…..the CDC made it official yesterday, although the evidence has been mounting for some time, as states like Tennessee have compared county data from counties with different mask policies.
Give it a rest. Your ignorance is no longer an excuse for spreading bad information on a public forum.
That’s the best you can do Eddie? Try to import more censorship on something you don’t agree with by labeling it “misinformation”? No wonder you live in TX, the land of the idiots.
Masks don’t work. PERIOD. Probably 80% of the sheeple followed the masking rules and yet that apparently wasn’t enough (if masking worked) because THEN WE WOULDN’T HAVE ALL THE RISING CASES, MORE HOSPITALIZATIONS AND DEATHS! D’oh.
So how do you think you are going to make the other 20% wear their masks properly (or at all) this time around? Call us names on internet forums? Try to shame anonymous people into complying? Not going to work. You can rant and rave till the cows come home and it isn’t going to make one bit of difference to anyone.
I’m betting you have your mask on in public before the winter is over….because you’re scared of dying.
Even the dumb people will eventually wise up when people close to them are on a ventilator. You ever have one of your loved ones on a ventilator? Seen what that is like?
I’d be happy for you to reap what you’re sowing…..which is death……based on you spreading your false information.
Flat out false. Proven false. Acknowledged by the CDC to be false.
Yes, if this were my blog you’d be banned. Mish can make his own decisions about people who endanger other peoples lives by spreading false information here, but it sucks that people like you are allowed to post comments ANYWHERE now.
That’s great to hear! Just remember that Australia has a similar sized land mass as the United States with the a total population similar to Florida. You are also about to enter your summer season, which was a low point in most US states. Please stay vigilant. I love your country and am fortunate to have seen quite a bit of it. I remember how hot it was at Ayers Rock at the end of November. So hot that we needed to visit very early in the morning. I also remember the flies – lol.
I live in NJ and we were hit very hard, very early. Much of the early deaths came from high virus concentration in just the states of NY and NJ. In my opinion, the lack of testing, lack of understanding as far as treatments and lack of hospital space and medical personnel contributed to the high death toll. But the summer was relatively calm.
We are back on the upswing. Altogether, my wife and I know 30+ people that have had it and 3 people that have died, including my neighbor across the street (he was 61). We also know several young people that had it with few systems but one 29-year-old that had it in April and has still not returned to normal. He fought fevers for over two months and still has weakness and struggles occasionally while breathing. He was actually in very good physical shape prior to getting the virus.
So again, please take precautions.
So trillions in losses down the drain because the actions taken previously to stifle Covid-19 didn’t work. Masking, social distance, excessive hand-cleaning, self & forced isolation/quarantine, etc. None of this worked.
And yet, countries (and states here in the USA) continue to take the same actions simply because they don’t know what else to do. They opened Pandora’s box, fostered panic and daily media fear mongering and now all TPTB are stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Ya gotta love it. The naysayers should feel vindication.
As virus spikes, Europe runs low on ICU beds, hospital staff
10 Nov 2020
PARIS (AP) — In Italy lines of ambulances park outside hospitals awaiting beds, and in France the government coronavirus tracking app prominently displays the intensive care capacity taken up by COVID-19 patients: 92.5% and rising. In the ICU in Barcelona, there is no end in sight for the doctors and nurses who endured this once already.
Intensive care is the last line of defense for severely ill coronavirus patients and Europe is running out — of beds and the doctors and nurses to staff them.
In country after country, the intensive care burden of COVID-19 patients is nearing and sometimes surpassing levels seen at last spring’s peak. Health officials, many advocating a return to stricter lockdowns, warn that adding beds will do no good because there aren’t enough doctors and nurses trained to staff them.
This is such a gross oversimplification…such a total misrepresentation of what happened in the spring,……and what is happening now, it makes me question your ability to comprehend reality.
The only thing about it that makes sense is that it fits your preferred narrative…which is that everyone should have just ignored the disease completely and let however many people who were going to die just die and get it over with.
France barely HAD a problem in the spring. If Italy hadn’t locked down when they did, probably hundreds of thousands more might have died.
The US flattened the hell out of the first wave curve…and if not for the non-cooperative naysayers, we might be doing much better now than we are.
“The US flattened the hell out of the first wave curve…and if not for the non-cooperative naysayers, we might be doing much better now than we are.”
Are those the same naysayers who are causing the 2nd and 3rd waves around the WHOLE WORLD? Or is it just our naysayers that are the problem in your eyes?
And what about the tradeoffs in economic losses both to whole economies and to individual financial security? It will be interesting to see how much homelessness, suicide and bankruptcy have increased in 2020, especially once all the home eviction proclamations expire.
Are those the same naysayers who are causing the 2nd and 3rd waves around the WHOLE WORLD? Or is it just our naysayers that are the problem in your eyes?
People who don’t cooperate with reasonable public health measures are a problem no matter where they are. The virus doesn’t need much to return to rampant levels of infection, apparently. Of course some of it has to do with things that are outside humans control. That’s not an excuse for deliberately saying stupid things.
Jojo has opposed masks and encouraged people to spread Covid as much as possible from the start. Yet, the data from Italy, contrary to his post, makes it clear that masks do work, and do reduce the severity of the disease when you catch it. Italy is reporting 10x as many cases now as they did in the Spring, yet only now are filling the hospitals, and even now have only half the deaths per day in the Spring. Thus, 1/10 as many people need hospitalization now, and 1/20 as many people are dying.
That’s a huge difference, and very consistent with data from Tennessee and Nebraska that shows lower hospitalization and lower death rates in areas with higher mask usage. There really isn’t any room for doubt as to whether masks make a difference. Until there is a vaccine, it’s the one thing that consistently improves results.
Do you think a lot of states actually enforced mask mandates ? I don’t. I only see evidence of some states doing this.
Clearly it’s bad despite the efforts to curtail it, and it’s had a devastating affect on economies. This blog post is about Milan’s hospitals and morgue’s difficulties coping. If there had been no effort to restrict the spread wouldn’t the queues to get into the hospitals and morgues be longer and in more regions etc? More suffering? What would or should the people on the ground do to cope with that scenario? What do they say to their families, who explains it them? Or are you of the view hospitals wouldn’t be overrun. I don’t understand how you’d deal with this situation if the virus was just left to it’s own devices?
As in all past pandemics when we did not close down whole economies, people will take the precautions THEY think are necessary for THEIR personal comfort while business continues or doesn’t if enough people decide to stay home.
There are many people who don’t want to be told what to do and don’t give a crap about the health or sickness of other people. Most people are lazy, don’t take care of their health and don’t eat well. Their lives are one big excuse.
And you want me to shed a tear for them when they get sick because they don’t take care of themselves? I’m sick and tired of all the whining.
The vast majority of people who are hospitalized or die from the virus have multiple comorbidities, are overweight and out-of-shape. If they die {shrug].
Not to mention that the followup to shutdown is to contact trace. That is the difference between what they they did in places like South Korea, Singapore and Japan and nearly everywhere else. None of it matters unless you take all the steps. It is like being an alcoholic and only doing the first few steps in recovery and rehab and then going back to drinking and thinking you can handle it.
How’s China doing?
According to themselves – wonderful. Even w/o a vaccine 1.4 billion people have managed to avoid infection and hospitalization, which is in sharp juxtaposition against the totality of the rest of the world. [lol]
Sounds like Europe should hire Chinese overseers to administer their Covid-19 eradication efforts!
Worked in New Zealand, Australia, and to a lesser extent, Canada. Either they have fewer morons, or they’re better at keeping their morons from expressing their stupidity.
The places it worked did contact tracing and steps after the initial steps. I see no effort to contact trace in most places.
I and many others contend that masks and SD do next to nothing. And we have been proven correct by the resurgence of the virus worldwide. You can’t stop the virus with anything other than perhaps a vaccine and we do not know how or if that is going to work.
You can’t prove a negative. You can howl to the moon goes away that there woulda, mighta been more cases, hospitalizations and deaths but you can’t prove this one way or the other.
So myself and people like myself will continue to ignore the masking rules you try to shame us with and we will continue on this path until the virus finally peters out.
The real question is when will the politicians give up because of all the flack they must be getting from people and business owners who have or are near to losing everything they had worked for, all from a relatively minor virus that has killed a majority of people that were only hanging on solely because of extreme medical intervention.
Different thread – same stupidity.
You whine continuously about the economic fallout for “people and business owners who have or are near to losing everything they had worked for” and at the same time whine about wearing a mask and staying a whole 6ft away from those that aren’t in your household. Those two things are related – even in places that don’t have the same restrictions as you are under, people make decisions to go out and do things based on the current environment around them; which most definitely includes the infection rate of this virus.
I’ve argued with you before about this (and you resorted to some childish name-calling) and you still won’t connect the dots. Taking preventative measures – even partially effective ones – will start to alleviate the economic toll by reassuring MORE people that they can safely participate in a wider range of activities. Your insistence that everyone should just act like nothing is happening {“Nothing to see here…go about your business!”} is counterproductive for exactly the flip side of that reasoning — if there are those engaged in risky behavior, there will be those that counter that by curtailing their activity. You can call me idiotic names again or try to compare hand sizes or whatever; but you’ve never countered this line of reasoning and I doubt you will here.
Very well, said, jfpersona1. Preventative measures HELP businesses by allowing people to participate in a wider variety of activities. Historically, in all pandemics, the economic toll is higher for countries that allow pandemics to run free, and lower in countries that do more to control it. The same is true here. Countries like Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Korea that have done a good job controlling Covid will have a much smaller economic toll in the end than the US.
Masks have a clear benefit in reducing case severity. While Italy still has hospitalizations and deaths, it took 10x as many cases in the fall before the hospitals reached capacity, and the deaths are still far, far below the Spring.
No there not related. But you’ll keep posting the same deluded BS, the same way politicians keep imposing the same failed virus mitigation strategies. But you are apparently too dumb to add 2+2 and get 4.
Like I said at the beginning of the previous post: Different thread – Same stupidity.
Yes, thanks for bringing the stupid here.
You didn’t answer my questions. I know your stance.
What do the doctors and nurses actually do when the hospital queues build up?
What they would do with any other problem. Send them to another hospital. D’oh.
As you say, they already do that. Surge capacity is already used by hospitals where a rapid influx of additional ICU patients can be catered for by reassigning staff, delaying procedures, putting beds closer together, and using regular beds for emergency use. Hospitals are also looking at re-arranging the physical space within the hospital. Converting wards into ICU areas, but this spreads staff more thinly. They may be able to find spare space, and actual free beds, and even enough ventilators, but intensive care needs intensive care doctors and nurses.
In Europe’s first wave of infections, patients living in Italy and France were treated in Germany but with infection numbers in the second wave across Europe being more widespread, it could be more difficult this time. This is with restrictions. Without any attempt to reduce the spread it would probably be impossible to do this.
So most governments have chosen the prevention is better than cure route in the hope that a vaccine is around the corner. I admit, as the situation dragged on this was beginning to look more like wishful thinking. However, now that a vaccine is around the corner I think their stance was and is the right one. I realise you don’t agree.
But a vaccine isn’t around the corner. According to stories I have read, most people won’t be able to get a vaccine until at least the summer. So that is what, 7-8 months away yet? Are we going to lock down until then?
And don’t forget that something like 50% say they will refuse to take one even when it becomes available and even though I get a flu shot each year, I believe I would not take a Covid shot until late in 2021 at the earliest.
Well I think the news from Pfizer is encouraging but accept it may take a while for a vaccine to be readily available.
We haven’t had to put a 7/8 month lockdown in place yet, they’re just trying to keep the R rate below 1. So this one supposedly comes off on the 2 December. This lockdown isn’t so severe, non social businesses remain open, although this is damaging enough. It’s a stop start process, not good.
However, in my view it’s the best option of the two evils. Whatever decision is taken is a compromise, I’m glad the decision isn’t mine.
Italians are wonderful people but they can be very stubborn and don’t like being told what to do. The virus out of control is proof of that once again
Proof?
You don’t want to allow for any other possibilities… this conclusively proves to you that had they done what they were told, there’d be no issue, and therefore they must not have done what they were told?
Yeah, it’s a moralistic virus.
We’re back in the days where the wrath of Govid impinges on people who are not behaving themselves.
There is some anecdotal evidence that some it is cultural. In the spring we saw outbreaks in Europe where the culture of kissing and hugging everyone for a greeting in places like Spain and Italy prevailed. ALL VIRUSES LOVE THIS.
Any reasonable person would expect that Italy/Spain/France/Belgium/UK etc. have learned how to handle the pandemic. No, they learned nothing. It’s shame for them to learn anything from the East. I recall that early in the year, some European politicians and officials infamously claimed that the virus is only for eastern Asians, and the Westerners are free from it (because they are supposed to be superior).
When were Chinese trolls allowed on this site? Most of the success in South East Asia was due to many of the states are island type situations where they could easily shut off all entry to their countries ,i.e.,… New Zealand to Taiwan and Japan. This makes a huge difference. As for China, we have no real independent information on how the Virus is currently affecting China. As for Korea and Taiwan they have a strong civil defense infrastructure since they assume that N. Korea or China is ready to attack them with chemical weapons.
You are a perceptive soul. Many do not see this because it doesn’t fit their narrative which is in fact just a variation of a video game. These countries are special cases.
Well you can choose to be blind to China’s success in containing the pandemic if that makes you feel better. Do you ever care to listen to IMF, World Bank, WHO, OECD, CNN, NYTimes, or Westerners who live in China? Or maybe I forget you cannot read, or you have your head buried in the sand?
Daily Beast:
“What’s particularly troubling about the return of COVID in Italy is that the country has done everything experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci have been
advising. Face masks in public places have been compulsory for months, social distancing is strongly enforced, nightclubs have never reopened,
and sporting arenas are at less than a third of capacity. Children who are back at school are regularly tested and strictly social-distanced, and yet,
the second wave seems completely unstoppable.”
Biden wants face masks to be compulsory in all states, but it is not preventing the current serious outbreak of Covid in Italy.
The only thing that Italy has not done is…..Drink Bleach, Stare at the empty space and declare….Covid 19 go away…
The chart shows relative stability in the US but a Europe that is doing very badly even worse than before. There is some speculation that the dominate strain in Europe is now the strain that is more infectious than the one before and therefor can expand through the population very rapidly. Back in March plane travel between Europe and the US was frequent. This time around travel between the continents is much rarer and under better control. With a little luck maybe this strain would not expand to the US. Here in France it’s total lock down.
I believe the d614g strain is quite prevalent here as well. I suspect we had a less virilent strain go thru much of the big city populations on the western seaboard last winter so I don’t expect too bad of a hit this winter. The more rural areas tho…either getting or gonna get hammered as the weather cools and flu season is in full swing. We’ll know soon enough, not looking forward to this winter, we can’t get a vaccine fast enough….
Early infection can have its’ advantages.
I ran across this. It’s a very good discussion of the different variants by geographical region and the differences in transmission rates. “The G614 strain has a reproduction number 31% times higher than the D614 strain.”
I put up an science article and it keeps disappearing.
I was out all day – not sure why spam filter caught it.
I undeleted it
Thank you Mish. I appreciate it.
Lots of the focus tends to be on not crashing out the health care systems, which is def. a problem. People dying, but economics isn’t gen. concerned about the moral aspects of life. Folks should be more concerned about the impact of rapid exponential expansion of the virus to other essential infrastructure (policing, electricity / hydro / nuclear energy workers, internet systems, food supply workers, pharmacy services). If large numbers of people get very sick all at once because the virus spreads unchecked or because large numbers of individuals ignore social distancing and other mitigation or population densities are so high that it’s difficult, the essential systems are going to be impacted in a big way. Then, the economy will be the least of our problems. The economy is always going to be crap until the vaccines are up and rocking. We should be making sure essential systems are safeguarded.
A friend of mines daughter is studying in Greece and they are on total lock down. They need to inform the government any time they want to leave their apartment, for any reason. The only valid reasons are work, exercise, medical, grocery store.
The Gravy Seals would surely step in to rescue us from such tyranny.
Of course it ‘s none of my business, but why would anyone want to study in Greece of all places ? …I wonder…
Archaeology maybe? History? idk.
Mathematics
Physics
Astronomy Space Exploration, Space Physics
Chemistry, Nanotechnology, Chemical Engineering
Engineering Technology
Seismology, Geology, Geophysics
Information Technology
Economy , Operation Research
Biology, Biochemistry, Pharmacology
Medicine
What’s to study in Belgium?
The inside of one’s own asshole, natch.
That’s what they study in Belgium? That is not a nice thing to say about the Belges. They can be quite fierce when insulted. I would watch your back now.
to study the famous Vlaam Blok.
Vlaamse Blok
Vlaams Blok …..changed its name years ago it is now Vlaams belang…..and next elections they ll become the largest political party …
European Studies
Simultaneous translation
Bureaucratese in 24 different languages.
if you bother to check you might find out that Belgium or Flanders rather has state of the art universities, Leuven, Gent, Brussels, Antwerp…..and that educational level in general is way above the european average, Greece must be at the bottom somewhere … if you live in France like you say you should know things about neighbouring countries and inform your totally ignorant fellow countrymen who only seem to know the inside of their american fat ass…..
I do live in France and the French in general have a condescending view of Belgians not unlike the condescending you have of the Greeks. Call it a quirk but I don’t like that type of thinking not because it is morally wrong but it is factually wrong. Look at the top universities and count how many Belgians work there vs how many Greeks. You would have a big surprise. The Greeks work with what they have and leverage it which allows them to punch above their weight. Other peoples don’t have that type of ambition.
The french are a textbook example of fckn chauvinists, you should know that by now, and if many greeks are working in top universities as you say it is simply because they have been studying abroad …..maybe in Belgium and other more advanced countries….
I’m sure there are decent universities there. Besides, it would be cheap living with good food and weather.
How about to learn Greek or to study archeology or classics, or because you have Greek connections?
For the dolmas and spanakopita?