Coronavirus in ITALY

I have decided I should make at least short post of the acknowledgment of the struggle of Italians against invisible enemy. I am writing this on 22 March 2020 when the numbers of cases achieved staggering 45000, deaths got to 5000 in total and are running now closely to 1000 deaths per day.

This news are awful. Whole generations of pensioners wiped out in some small villages. Hospitals run over with hundreds of cases. Most of the infections concentrated to northern Italy around Lombardy, but it also slowly starts to spread to whole country, Europe and actually Italy is now one of epicentres of the disease, from where it is exported to the rest of the world. Lack of ventilators and protective equipment, almost 50% of people getting to Intensive care units never make it home and also 50% of infected people needed hospitalisation, while rest of the world talks of 80% of patients having only minor or no symptoms. Healthcare staff getting regularly infected and dying, doctors having to decide who will get the bed and who will not, almost playing the god.

I am so sorry. I love Italy. I have been there tens of times since I was 20, I speak (or at least I used to) reasonably well the language, I know a lot about their history, I love their cuisine, their coffee. There are some incredible pieces of art and architecture. Think of the Pantheon building still standing after 2000 years in great condition, Piazza san Marco in Venice, Florence, Pompeii streets showing visitors how Romans lived 2000 years ago, Botticelli’s Venus or Boccaccio’s stories. Incredible culture. Incredible people. All current world uses many of their inventions and improvements. That’s where the western world culture arguably was founded (with Greeks being bit ahead). I am from the Czech Republic, wife is from South Korea, living in Australia but I still have a weakness for that beautiful country.

And this great people are suffering now. Everything closed. No more cafes and restaurants, people are not even allowed to the parks, no soccer, no theaters. Most of Italians are now in lockdown at home trying not to get infected. Borders closed for arrivals and departures. We here in Sunshine Coast still living (mostly) normal life, while there is a war in Italy.

But as I am not naïve, I know it is coming. Even China’s and South Korea’s fight against virus is not over and these countries appear to be winning the war, at least compared to the rest of the pack. Now the Italy is the bloodiest battleground with 10 times of the rate of the disease per capita as compared to China and within 4-5 days it will be ahead of China in absolute count. It has already gotten ahead in number of deaths. Next in line unless something dramatic are the countries like Spain, France, Germany, UK and yes US. That guess is just based on looking on charts mapping the development of the spread. Let’s hope social distancing will work as we don’t have a cure or vaccine and unfortunately I cannot see them coming too soon. I believe most of the countries closed their borders too late and allowed the virus to take ground. Now it is spreading just in population without need of extra imports.

It seems there is not much we can do about it. Keep the distance, keep clean and stay sane. Australia is nicely isolated from the rest of the world, but considering we already have 1000 cases, the spread will copy other countries. We are hoping to go South Korean way, and we are dreading to go Italian way.

Here I am totally ignoring cases in less developed world. Africa, Indonesia, India. Unfortunately I cannot see why the virus would skip them. I have studied maths and statistics enough to be crying for that part of the world because our suffering will be unfortunately multiplied there, due to lack of awareness, poverty, religion, information blocks, quality and availability of health care. Most of the numbers coming from third word are not really credible for the reasons above. Multiples of cases and deaths are unreported.

When the disease passes, the world WILL be different. Economies will be decimated, some governments and countries might collapse. Social, economic, agriculture and maybe political systems might change.

What am I now seeing that can be done to prepare and limit the damage of the next similar problem coming humanity’s way? Learn as much as you can from the first visible cases. China was ignored by the west for at least a month (and that was after even China ignored own problems for another month).

Keep well funded and general health care. Keep debt low in good times. Whole world got so cocky and everyone thought that the good times will last for ever. Governments did not prepare for the tough times. Everyone was running budget deficits with perfect unemployment and economies ticking at 3% per year. Central banks kept interest rates historically low for no logical long term reasons. Causes for that were mainly incompetence, populism and lobbying by financial institutions. I am bit too old to think there could be some leaders taking responsibilities for bad decisions and inaction. They were told. Also they probably knew or should have known. Short term easy goals will take off the right path governments same as individuals.

Lets hope this crisis will pass as fast as it arrived and we can live our lives freely again.

Viva Italia