The Word Of The Days Is "COMORBIDITY"
Of all the locations with clusters of kung flu infections, Italy is the most active. Astonishingly so, with (as of 3/22/2020 @ 12:13 PM Eastern Daylight Time Z-4) 53,578 confirmed cases, and 4825 deaths. (As always, go to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard for up to date numbers.)
There was a story yesterday asking this very question in The Telegraph. They identified several things that might be contributing to this:
- Demographics: Italy is, on average, a country full of old people. According to the CIA World Factbook, Italy is the 5th oldest country in the world. We know that COVID-19 is more likely to cause death in older people.
- Comorbidity, that is, association with other diseases: Italy's aging population, as well as being old, also has lots of old people with heart disease, COPD, long histories of smoking, high blood pressure, and diabetes.
- There's a geographic factor here as well: most of the deaths are coming from heavily industrial Lombardy, which also has a long history of bad airpollution.
- The most interesting one is that the Italian National Institute of Health thinks cause of death is being over-identified as COVID-19. This one is sure to start an argument in the comments, but heres the direct quote:
“On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many had two or three,” he says.GO READ THE WHOLE THING.
