Andy

Italy's age demographics are heavily weighted toward senior citizens. Here is a pie chart showing Italy's coronavirus cases broken down by age: https://www.statista.com/statistics/...e-group-italy/

There's a reason why Italy's been hit so hard by coronavirus.

horrido27

Yes, please do.
And then Google who Yascha Mounk is.
I'll help you -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yascha_Mounk

He is a 'political scientist' (who knew such a title/job existed?)
He is giving HIS opinion. Like we all are.
Notice the line he uses at the end of his article.
Cancel Everything.

Just let that sick in.
Motch

PS) As far as the 'elderly' are concerned, yes- that is a very serious issue. But lets also be brutaly honest for a sec.
If Trump, Biden, Sanders (Bernie.. not Emmanuel!) Pelosi or McConnel all come down with it, got a feeling they will have health care to survive. As brutal as it sounds, if you have the means, you have the chance to survive.
If you're 70 and overweight, always smoked and now you come down with CV19.. um, it sucks if there are only 10 respirators and 20 cases in that hospital. Not sure what the right answer is..

Also, when you read the article please note that is says "Instead of providing intensive care to all patients who need it, its authors suggest, it may become necessary to follow “the most widely shared criteria regarding distributive justice and the appropriate allocation of limited health resources.”
Again, (in my opinion) this article is promoting Fear more than anything else.
Italy has a population of over 60 million. The article states 10149 cases. So .016915 percent has been diagnosed with it. And are requiring care. Interesting that they don't have the medical staff to deal with it.

paulcg77

I lived in northern Italy for a year on an undergrad exchange. The area I lived in was primarily German speaking and used to be part of Austria (Tyrol Sud) until the end of WWII. It is a developed, modern region with the largest per capita income and strongest economy (in normal times) in all of Italy, and it has (had) a reputation for the best hospitals, physicians and healthcare in southern Europe when I lived there 15 years ago.

You're right that the demographics in Italy are skewed towards the old. Italy in general is an older country with an aging demographic. With that said, I'm not sure that pointing this out makes any difference at all. I'm not the least bit worried about what COVID-19 will do me; I'm a healthy 40-something, prior military with Tricare for life that also covers my wife and kids, and we live in Hawaii. I am worried for my parents, who are in their 70's, and my grandmother and grandfather, who are in their early 90's. What this article I posted makes clear is that this virus is overwhelming a first-rate, top notch healthcare system in a developed country, and it is getting to a point where guidelines are being issued on who to triage. This doesn't make me worried for myself, but it makes me worried for my parents and grandparents. The US has plenty of regions with inadequate healthcare, a physician shortage, and a high population density. If what is happening in Italy gets here, you won't see 20 year olds or children dying, but you'll see a lot of seniors dying. This isn't fear mongering, it's reality.

MaxQ

This guy gets it.

Regularguy

At this point the actual corona virus probably isn’t your greatest concern. There will be layoffs, business failures, unemployment will rise, the banks are in a liquidity crisis at this very moment and the politicians are beginning to play ‘Risk’ with our nation’s borders.

When it’s over you may look back and think getting the virus was the easiest part of this crisis pandemic.

Spicy McHaggis

What this guy said... the economic damage from the virus will be more dangerous than the virus itself. How many livelihoods (and lives) will be destroyed from the economic upheaval?

drywhitetoast

Always ask yourself who gains from this.

paulcg77

If you believe the epidemiologists and physicians, assuming the estimates are accurate that 50-70% of us get the coronavirus and that it has a ~5% mortality rate in people over 70, the answer is that a he11 of a lot more people will die from this virus than from economic upheaval.

Andy

Yep. The credit markets were locking up (mondo bad) until the NY Fed stepped in with a bazooka today with a $1.5T (that's Trillion, folks) of liquidity to get the credit markets flowing again. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...ty/5032970002/
This is QE on steroids and the NY Fed has left the door open for this to be an open ended thing.

Don't understand what happens when the credit markets lock up? You know all those low interest rate mortgage refis? They're going up this week because the credit markets are FUBAR'd. The liquidity wasn't there to lend until the Fed dumped a ton of liquidity into the markets through a massive bond purchase program.

I don't think most understand how fragile the financial markets are right now.

paulcg77

It's true. I don't think mos understand how many people could die from this if we don't get a handle on it, too. Some basic math using northern Italy as an example: A population of around 50,000,000 Americans at/over age 70. A 70% infection rate for older people, so around 35 million Americans in this age category will eventually get infected. A 5% mortality rate for this age group, so ~1.75 million eventually dead. That's just in the USA, and it's a conservative estimate that leaves out people younger than 70 who have comorbidities like autoimmune diseases.

None of this is a given, in my opinion; I trust the physicians and scientists who say this will get significantly worse before it gets better, but I also believe that if we take this seriously, which we are starting to do, it will save a lot of lives. For the folks on here who say it's all extremely old people and "smokers with heart disease" who will die so no big deal, you might feel differently if it's your spouse with an autoimmune disease or your elderly parents who are at risk. Just saying.