Originally Posted by
Denti
Italy got into the unenviable situation that the health system was overwhelmed. Not to say that it cannot happen elsewhere. Once it is overwhelmed they have to turn to triage and that basically means that mortality goes up a lot as you simply stop helping those cases beyond a certain threshold, to preserve the available system for those where it makes most sense. Yes, that is usually done in war and not in a western country, but it can, and in this case, it did and does happen. Basically: Young and a good chance to survive? Get all the help you need. Old and very low chance? No more care, happy dieing.
Also remember that the number of detected cases vs. the
actual number of cases will be very different. This will depend on the number of people tested for example. Look at the different test rates across different countries, it varies very widely.