[OC] Number of Coronavirus cases, deaths and tests performed in two democracies with similar populations: South Korea (pop: 51 million) vs Italy (pop: 60 million)
Women seem to fare better than men (not unheard of with viruses), and young people have very little risk.
South Korea is on the tip of a peninsula, and its single land border is the most heavily defended border on earth, with North Korea. This essentially makes them an island as far as screening travel is concerned. Northern Italy (where their outbreak began) borders four different EU nations (EU nations are quite easy to travel between).
South Korea has been broadcasting alerts such as ""A 43-year-old man, resident of Nowon district, tested positive for coronavirus," it says. "He was at his work in Mapo district attending a sexual harassment class. He contracted the virus from the instructor of the class." People have been identified this way.
South Korea amended their medical privacy laws after the MERS outbreak, making them less protective. This may not fly in other countries.
![image showing [OC] Number of Coronavirus cases, deaths and tests performed in two democracies with similar populations: South Korea (pop: 51 million) vs Italy (pop: 60 million)](90e5defe-d9d9-534e-b747-c1c58c4db0c6.jpg)
Cracker77 on March 13rd, 2020 at 23:23 UTC »
There are other factors/context as well.
The demographic of the South Korean Outbreak skews heavily toward female (61.9%) and young (28.5% between 20 & 29 yrs old). This is likely because of the demographic of the large (200,000 person) church organization where their outbreak originated.
Women seem to fare better than men (not unheard of with viruses), and young people have very little risk.
South Korea is on the tip of a peninsula, and its single land border is the most heavily defended border on earth, with North Korea. This essentially makes them an island as far as screening travel is concerned. Northern Italy (where their outbreak began) borders four different EU nations (EU nations are quite easy to travel between).
South Korea is about 1/3 of the area of Italy. South Korea has been using "GPS data, surveillance camera footage, and credit card transactions to recreate their route a day before their symptoms showed" to trace cases and identify the potentially infected. Even if legal in Italy, the population probably has lower cellphone and credit card usage, and there is less density of security cameras.
South Korea has been broadcasting alerts such as ""A 43-year-old man, resident of Nowon district, tested positive for coronavirus," it says. "He was at his work in Mapo district attending a sexual harassment class. He contracted the virus from the instructor of the class." People have been identified this way.
South Korea amended their medical privacy laws after the MERS outbreak, making them less protective. This may not fly in other countries.
Supportive care is important to keeping the CFR low. Consider that South Korea has the 2nd most hospital beds in the world at 12.27 per 1000 people, compared to Italy's 3.18.
duracellchipmunk on March 14th, 2020 at 00:02 UTC »
I have family in Italy and lived in Korea. I’ll say it. Italians kiss a lot and Koreans are not nearly as physical.
AyukaVB on March 14th, 2020 at 00:16 UTC »
Is this an example of 'flattening the curve' concept I hear a lot about?