Day 105: The Governor Cancels Monday

In a surprise move, Peru joined India in the Great Leap Forward to the wrong side of China. Russia is edging ever closer to #2; one bad day could put them there, and two average days are sure to do it. Italy's death count currently stands at 31,614, only notable because...

The Istituto Superiore di Sanità has put out a report on 27,955 coronavirus deaths in Italy (circa May 7th), finding a mean age of death of 80 and median of 81 (85 in women, 79 in men). They contrast this with the median age of infection, which was 62. They totaled up deaths for every decile, finding 3 below 10, none in their teens, 9 in their twenties, 54 in their thirties, 246 in their forties, almost a thousand in their 50's, almost 3,000 in their 60's, and then some very high numbers (7849 for the 70's and 11395 for the 80's), only dampened at the end by the general lack of nonagenarians in the population (only 4,430 died).

But wait, there's more! Only 4% of the dead suffered from no comorbidities, while 60% of them maxed out at 3 or more. (Some more breakdown would have been helpful there.) The most common comorbidity was hypertension (68% of deaths) followed by type II diabetes (31%), ischemic heart disease (28%), atrial fibrillation (22%), chronic renal failure (20%), and then COPD, heart failure, recent cancer, and dementia (all around 16%). Obesity and stroke followed (at around 11%), and they tracked five other conditions (all below 5% or so). They broke these down by sex, but the differences weren't large.

But wait, there's more! In 93% of hospitalized patients, symptoms were typical for COVID-19. The analysis of atypical symptoms is not particularly useful, but there is some data for time of stay. The median length of infection before hospitalization was 5 days, and the median length of hospital stay (until death) was also 5 days. ICU stays were 9 days long, but don't seem to have been very common considering the median without ICU remained at 5 days.

But wait, there's more! Only 312 deaths (1.1%) were of persons under 50, and only 66 of them were under 40. For those 66, comorbidity information was only available for 52, 40 of whom had "serious pre-existing pathologies (cardiovascular, renal, psychiatric pathologies, diabetes, obesity)".

No, there's no more. Here in Massachusetts our cases were up 1.5% today. The governor has extended the non-essential business ban for one day until Tuesday, filling in the legal loophole (at least for Monday).

P.S. For comparison, our average age of death in Massachusetts is 82.