[playpause]

It’s worth noting Italy’s much higher death rate is because the hospitals are full, and this is likely to happen in other countries soon. The proportion of Covid-19 patients that require intubation is much higher than that of flu.

Several other European countries and the US are on roughly the same infection rate trajectory as Italy, just a few weeks behind. Unless they significantly slow it down, it seems likely their health systems will be overwhelmed too, and their death rates could start looking more like Italy’s.

[makomk]

Italy is probably also just not testing people who don't have serious symptoms. They've been hovering around a 15% positive rate on tests, about half of which have to be hospitalized, which is a lot compared to other countries.

[cutemonster]

In addition to that, I read that there are more old people in Italy too -- another factor contributing to the higher numbers there.

[clarry]

https://i.imgur.com/lFWUCZv.png

[danek_szy]

Apparently Switzerland surpassed other countries and is now #2 for no of cases per million people...

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries