Italian health care system has performed 10x more tests than neighbouring EU members such as France or Germany and founds 10x people positive to the virus. Italy is now the third most affected country (for some definition of "now" since the situation evolves rapidly)
That doesn't mean it's necessarily a statistical artifact of the stance on testing.
It could really be that Italy has been unlucky and once the infection spreads there the number of tests might be commensurate to the number of people showing symptoms.
But it can also be an artefact of the engagement rules: the WHO guideline is to perform the test under certain conditions, some of them are clinical (e.g. specific symptoms of the respiratory system) some of them are not, e.g. whether you've been in an area that has been identified as affected.
That is reasonable of course, but makes the numbers hard to compare. Imagine there are a number of undetected cases in a town in Germany, and that number is greater than whatever threshold would turn the surrounding area as a hotspot.
Now anybody that passed through that area becomes eligible for testing and it's quite possible that the number of positive test results skyrockets (possibly triggering the creation of new hotspots etc).
The situation on the ground hasn't change
; just our awareness of it (i.e. our information)
That doesn't mean it's necessarily a statistical artifact of the stance on testing. It could really be that Italy has been unlucky and once the infection spreads there the number of tests might be commensurate to the number of people showing symptoms.
But it can also be an artefact of the engagement rules: the WHO guideline is to perform the test under certain conditions, some of them are clinical (e.g. specific symptoms of the respiratory system) some of them are not, e.g. whether you've been in an area that has been identified as affected.
That is reasonable of course, but makes the numbers hard to compare. Imagine there are a number of undetected cases in a town in Germany, and that number is greater than whatever threshold would turn the surrounding area as a hotspot.
Now anybody that passed through that area becomes eligible for testing and it's quite possible that the number of positive test results skyrockets (possibly triggering the creation of new hotspots etc).
The situation on the ground hasn't change ; just our awareness of it (i.e. our information)