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Is Italy's lockdown a failure?

Is it a failure?

  • Yes

    Votes: 38 34.9%
  • No

    Votes: 39 35.8%
  • Too early to tell, in a week this will be an epic backfire

    Votes: 32 29.4%

  • Total voters
    109
I don't believe this for a second. Italy and China agreed to the one belt one road economic pact in March of 2019. Italy has seen massive infrastructure projects and spending, fueled by China for the past year. Tons of Chinese goods, tons of Chinese workers, many from Wuhan flowing in and out of Italy and not one had the virus? Bullshit

And for the record, the "hug a Chinese" idea was always stupid.
No, China is innocent. I want you to reassess your way of thinking and hug everyone you see until this happy little global accident dies down. After all, you are at fault for being a westerner.
 
delicious but terrible for you, not worth it
I'm gonna eat pasta and you can't stop me.

hf08Oil.png
 
There's a video floating around from a South Korean doctor that's part of infectious diseases and controls. He's been doing this for 30 years.



Basically he's saying that a big reason SK and Japan have had so much success is that everyone wears mask and he doesn't agree with the WHO saying that normal people shouldn't wear them. However it's already part of the culture in Asian countries and that they have been proven to work. He says that if you look at the asian countries the spread has been minimal where the European countries and the U.S have exploded because no one wears masks.

Which makes sense since it's like the CDC telling us that condoms don't fucking work if you don't want to get a chick pregnant. It's pretty crazy that we're digging our own fucking graves when it could be prevented over something that costs less than a $1 to make.
 
I am starting to get a bit worried about all these lockdowns. Its been at least 10 days or more since most of the western world started doing some sort of lockdown. Not everywhere has been total but we have seen social distancing, closure of business's, schools, etc.... And yet numbers keep going up. I get that its people who were infected 2 weeks ago or what not, but shouldn't we be seeing a small trend at least?

I am not expecting complete turnover and eradication, but every country is going up. Where I live we closed schools like 3 weeks ago, Cinema's, gyms, restauranst like almost 2 weeks ago, and about a week ago it was everything but non essential. People can still move freely etc but there isn't really anywhere to go.

Yet are case numbers keep going up. It just feels like a losing battle right now. The alternative isn't any better though.
 
I am starting to get a bit worried about all these lockdowns. Its been at least 10 days or more since most of the western world started doing some sort of lockdown. Not everywhere has been total but we have seen social distancing, closure of business's, schools, etc.... And yet numbers keep going up. I get that its people who were infected 2 weeks ago or what not, but shouldn't we be seeing a small trend at least?

I am not expecting complete turnover and eradication, but every country is going up. Where I live we closed schools like 3 weeks ago, Cinema's, gyms, restauranst like almost 2 weeks ago, and about a week ago it was everything but non essential. People can still move freely etc but there isn't really anywhere to go.

Yet are case numbers keep going up. It just feels like a losing battle right now. The alternative isn't any better though.

The rates will slow down once most everyone has had it and has become immune.
Not before that.
 
Air pollution is the real culprit here. China and northern Italy are polluted and everybody got damaged lung. The virus symptom are in the lung so there is a corrolation there.
 
Still with the hugging thing? It was not virtue signaling, I don't know why many are obessed with that here.

I'll post it again:

That movement was right, and it happend because people started insulting and spitting at random Chinese people in the streets, even though they haven't been to China in fucking years (or at all) and they had nothing to do with all of this. (we have some big chinese communities in 2/3 cities) They avoided even chinese restaraunts. It would be the same thing if you were to treat like shit the italians who live abroad but haven't been back home during the virus, only because of their nationality. (and I hear this is happening in Germany) Also it wasn't a chinese who brought the virus in Italy.

A movement who calls for you to hug the people of the country of origin of the virus is right?

I guess you run a -very progressive- coffin business.
 
I am starting to get a bit worried about all these lockdowns. Its been at least 10 days or more since most of the western world started doing some sort of lockdown. Not everywhere has been total but we have seen social distancing, closure of business's, schools, etc.... And yet numbers keep going up. I get that its people who were infected 2 weeks ago or what not, but shouldn't we be seeing a small trend at least?

I am not expecting complete turnover and eradication, but every country is going up. Where I live we closed schools like 3 weeks ago, Cinema's, gyms, restauranst like almost 2 weeks ago, and about a week ago it was everything but non essential. People can still move freely etc but there isn't really anywhere to go.

Yet are case numbers keep going up. It just feels like a losing battle right now. The alternative isn't any better though.
Incubation period 5-11 days.
Disease duration of 3-4 weeks.
Most people don't get tested at the first sign of mild symptoms.
In some places, it takes up to 1 week for test results to come back.

There's going to be a significant lag time between shut down measures and any changes in the numbers. Right now we're still diagnosing people who were infected before the shutdown.
 
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The lockdown is not a failure in Italy or elsewhere.
The messaging about the lockdowns were possibly unclear so people think that the lockdown will kill off the virus and we go back to normal.
That is not the purpose of the lockdown, it is merely to slow down the infection rate so that the pandemic will last much longer, but not as many people are sick at the same time and also buying time to build up more beds and hospitals.

If you look at any of the data, all the lockdowns do, and even publicly aim to do is to flatten the curve
and bring down the R0 value from 3-4 to something more manageable like 1.5 or so.
But still, since R0 is > 1.0 it will not slow down the growth. It will continue growing just at a slower rate.

So expect every day to have higher numbers than the day before.
If you just get a little higher numbers than the day before, then that is lockdown working. But the numbers will continue to grow until everyone has been infected.
If the numbers grow a massive 20% per day, then that is the lockdown not working.


Actual drop in numbers will not happen until so many people have already been infected and recovered, and are now immune, so that there is nowhere else for the virus to spread.
That probably, imho, is at least 6 months out IF the lockdown is hugely successful.


EDIT: To have the numbers drop means we need to get R0 to <1.0. No one expects that as far I can tell. They hope it will drop the R0 down to ~1.5 or so to bet breathing room to ramp up hospitals.

Flattening the curve. The area under the curve is still the same. 60-70% of the population.
It is just that the flatter curve has a much lower peak. But it also lasts 3-4 times as long.
 
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Depends what you call a failure. This is a no win scenario. Whatever you do a load of people will die. Then you have to balance that with how much you fuck up the economy and the long term effects of that. Genuinely glad I don't have to make the choices.

Gonna be hard to evaluate till the dust settles.
 
The lockdown in Italy has been failure because people didn't treat it seriously in the beginning.

They were talking about this in our Polish TV as an example how not to do lockdown.

The moment they closed schools the teenagers started doing parties and going to the clubs because they were bored and no one took it seriously until very recently.
 
I am starting to get a bit worried about all these lockdowns. Its been at least 10 days or more since most of the western world started doing some sort of lockdown. Not everywhere has been total but we have seen social distancing, closure of business's, schools, etc.... And yet numbers keep going up. I get that its people who were infected 2 weeks ago or what not, but shouldn't we be seeing a small trend at least?

I am not expecting complete turnover and eradication, but every country is going up. Where I live we closed schools like 3 weeks ago, Cinema's, gyms, restauranst like almost 2 weeks ago, and about a week ago it was everything but non essential. People can still move freely etc but there isn't really anywhere to go.

Yet are case numbers keep going up. It just feels like a losing battle right now. The alternative isn't any better though.

Rates only really go down in countries which ban going to work. Which is what eventually all countries will have to do, it just takes them all a different amount of time to come to that realization. Schools are not the worst offenders, because the surrounding area of each is limited. But workplaces? You got people coming from as far as 30 miles away. Much larger radius for potential infections.

Hard measures are needed, lock everyone at home for two months and you have beaten the virus, simple as that. But seeing how some people seem to be physically or mentally uncapable of spending just a couple of days at their home without going outside, you'd actually have to lock them in. China welded people into their apartments. Looked excessive and crazy two months ago. But it fucking worked. Learn from South Korea and Germany's amazing health systems, learn from China's containment measures. And then you are good. It's obviously too late for this pandemic, it will wreak havoc in the US and other third world places. No amount of money can change not having the people. US can buy millions of respirators, but without having millions more of people that know how to use them they are worthless. And to train them takes years. Only the vaccine (bye, anti-vaxxers) can save the US.
 
The lockdown in Italy has been failure because people didn't treat it seriously in the beginning.

They were talking about this in our Polish TV as an example how not to do lockdown.

The moment they closed schools the teenagers started doing parties and going to the clubs because they were bored and no one took it seriously until very recently.

They still dont treat it seriously, they are throwing big private parties, still go for walks and so on.
 
Hard measures are needed, lock everyone at home for two months and you have beaten the virus, simple as that.

That is not how viruses work. You can't kill them that easily.
You can make them go dormant and end up with very small infection numbers but as soon as you lift the restrictions,
the virus will resurface as if nothing happened.

Two things can stop a virus:
1, like Polio. A concerted worldwide vaccination program that took 60 years to (almost) kill the virus.
2, once everyone has been infected and are now immune, there are no new hosts for the virus so it goes extinct. (or mutates)

If we are still in lockdown in 12 months and the virus is still going strong. We should extend the lockdown for another 12 months?

I think we already have people from Harward and MIT saying that a total lockdown must last at least 24 months to be effective.
Good luck with that.
 
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Wuhan started its lockdown on the 23rd of January. The deaths lag a lot
SPBreif.png


Italy went into full lockdown on March 9th, their daily cases have plateaued, the deaths haven't yet. It's working though.
v7uOfEg.png

This. Also, Italy has a high concentration of older people compared to other places apparently.

Italy is a prime example for what NOT to do in the situation of a global outbreak. You do not INTENTIONALLY RUB AGAINST CARRIERS OF AN UNKNOWN AND OBVIOUSLY HIGHLY INFECTIOUS DISEASE TO PROVE A POINT. No pity.

What the hell are you talking about.

And even if this dumb shit were accurate, this has no correlation with the death toll because Italy has cases comparable to the top 5 infected countries, yet upwards of 4-5x the death toll.

edit:

No, China is innocent. I want you to reassess your way of thinking and hug everyone you see until this happy little global accident dies down. After all, you are at fault for being a westerner.

oh you're one of those.

nevermind
 
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More likely to get it from a Handshake than Hugging honestly.

As for the Lockdown, it will eventually curve the cases/deaths but it is spiking due to various factors.

Lack of Medical Personnel to help care fir everyone.

A high amount of Elderly.

Chinese Immigrants who came back from the Chinese New Year

Football matches being played to spread it even more.


Frel bad for Italy and I know they will get through this but...it seems that touching each other as a greeting will be done much less after this.
 
Loaded question really; there are multiple factors that are an issue, theres really no single answer.

Customs, culture, infrastructure, zoning, access to healthcare, population demographics.

Italy were probably a little slow on the uptake of locking down the country but in their defense they were also one of the first nations outside of Asia to be really hit by it.

Covid-19 is particularly infectious and when you start breaking down some of the afforentioned factors its actually more like how can they have NOT been hit so hard.

Many of Italys town and cities are very, very old; buildings are crammed together seperated only by small cobbled streets, you could basically cough from one side of the street to the other.

Its also not uncommon for multiple generations of families to occupy a single living space with the elderly at home and the younger generations out in public working or being routinely exposed to the general public.

Western culture is also not really adapt at social distancing; handshakes, hugs or even kissing others on the cheek are socially acceptable and to a point an expectation with regard to greeting, meeting or other forms of social interaction.

Italy also being one of the first countries in the West to get hit likely was not aware of the extent of how infectious this virus was or to what extent it had already spread, by the time anyone really knew how bad this was going to be the number of infected was already growing exponentially.



This whole covid-19 pandemic has been a shit show; from the wet markets that China has turned a blind eye to, to WHO dragging its feet, the general apathy of the public at large who (still) havent taken it all that seriously.....some countries who went through previous corona virus outbreaks have been better prepared, their governments already having protocols and procedures in place, the people more educated and orderly in following pandemic instructions.

This is the first one in modern times to really hit the West and its been both a learning curve and expose on how unprepared we really are.
 
That is not how viruses work. You can't kill them that easily.
You can make them go dormant and end up with very small infection numbers but as soon as you lift the restrictions,
the virus will resurface as if nothing happened.

Two things can stop a virus:
1, like Polio. A concerted worldwide vaccination program that took 60 years to (almost) kill the virus.
2, once everyone has been infected and are now immune, there are no new hosts for the virus so it goes extinct. (or mutates)

If we are still in lockdown in 12 months and the virus is still going strong. We should extend the lockdown for another 12 months?

I think we already have people from Harward and MIT saying that a total lockdown must last at least 24 months to be effective.
Good luck with that.

A 2 month hard lockdown might not eradicate the virus, but it does give us a chance to start contact tracing again. If we get back to contact tracing, have built a stockpile of tests, and put good systems in place, then we have a chance.
 
I'd much rather know what does China get from lying about the real numbers.
They think they can just go back to trade goods and travel back in like nothing happened?
 
I'd much rather know what does China get from lying about the real numbers.
They think they can just go back to trade goods and travel back in like nothing happened?

CCP vs 1 billion people. The reason why the people of China accept the CCP is because of the economic faustian deal they made. Lift us out of poverty and we will allow you to abuse all the human rights you want.

If CCP doesn't get the economy going they have no credability and are toast. They know it. They only influence they have across the world is due to their large economy and if they cant swing that around they are nothing. Its bad internationally, but even worse domestically.
 
Well, the lockdown definitely reduces the average face to face contacts every person has, so it will definitely slow the spread.

The question is whether it slows the spread enough for the healthcare system to be able to catch up with the existing number of infected.



I'd much rather know what does China get from lying about the real numbers.
They think they can just go back to trade goods and travel back in like nothing happened?

Lying won't benefit them.
Every country here faces the same challenge. If you don't shut down your economic and social life the virus will spread too fast and overwhelm the healthcare system.
You can lie about the numbers, but lies won't change the situation in China.
Apparently the are now starting to open up again slowly, which means that it took them approximately 3 months of shutdown.

For China this is now a big chance because currently supply and demand worldwide are plummeting, but when other countries want to rebuild, demand will skyrocket, while supply is still down.
If China regains control over the virus fast enough they will be able to be the ones who create the necessary supply.
Meaning that a large amount of the money in those stimulus packages that are made all over the planet will go to China if they recover the fastest.
 
The lockdown in Italy is working extremely well, the number of deaths is just a very poor indicator as it trails the infections by weeks.

This is a chart showing the average number of patients hospitalised+deceased in all Italian hospitals, compared to the situation 10 days earlier:
M2lMf6T.png


Thsis the number of new patients entering ICU:
7IYkxC1.png


This is the number of patients just being hospitalised

Uec2uCW.png


As you can see, less than three weeks from the start of the lockdown the number peaked and they are starting to fall.

Italy is actually the one country to follow closely as a blueprint for other Western nations, since the methods used in China, while effective, are just impossible to fully implement in a democracy.
 
Imagine a snowball rolling down a hill and getting bigger... if you stop it early, its not too hard (S. Korea)... if you wait too long to try and stop it, you're fucked (Italy) but will eventually slow it down and stop it
 
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The lockdown in Italy is working extremely well, the number of deaths is just a very poor indicator as it trails the infections by weeks.

This is a chart showing the average number of patients hospitalised+deceased in all Italian hospitals, compared to the situation 10 days earlier:
M2lMf6T.png


Thsis the number of new patients entering ICU:
7IYkxC1.png


This is the number of patients just being hospitalised

Uec2uCW.png


As you can see, less than three weeks from the start of the lockdown the number peaked and they are starting to fall.

Italy is actually the one country to follow closely as a blueprint for other Western nations, since the methods used in China, while effective, are just impossible to fully implement in a democracy.

Thank you for the data.

It does provide a glimpse of hope for the rest of us.
 
Updated tables and the outlook keeps getting better!

Number of new patients just being hospitalised:
e5VzPTk.png



New patients admitted to ICUs:
bF9IFEu.png



Average number of patients hospitalised+deceased in all Italian hospitals, compared to the situation 10 days earlier:
k4OupxG.png
 
Obviously the lock down has helped! But it came to early and the Italian leftist government encouraged hug a China man day to stop corona "racism".
 
Updated tables and the outlook keeps getting better!

Number of new patients just being hospitalised:
e5VzPTk.png



New patients admitted to ICUs:
bF9IFEu.png



Average number of patients hospitalised+deceased in all Italian hospitals, compared to the situation 10 days earlier:
k4OupxG.png
But while the number of additional ICU cases (it's not new cases, new cases would be additional cases plus deaths) is going down, the overall number of ICU patients is at an all time high currently, over 4.000. This is far from being over, especially regarding the amount of deaths. Same for the overall number of hospitalized people, which is at the ATH of 32.400.
 
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I grew up in Europe in the 90s and early 00s, which basically means that i was indoctrinated in a kind of racism lite about other European countries. The French were assholes who couldn't drive, the Germans were humourless wiseasses, the English had shit food and worse teeth... Italy and Spain were both corrupt as fuck. To the point of humour.

Not so funny now? ... They're paralysed by institutional unaccountability...?
 
Why would it start to drop on March 9th? That's when the lockdown started. No way it has an immediate effect.

Because the chart is not day by day totals, but day by day averaged over multiple days, to obtain better statistical data.
 
I grew up in Europe in the 90s and early 00s, which basically means that i was indoctrinated in a kind of racism lite about other European countries. The French were assholes who couldn't drive, the Germans were humourless wiseasses, the English had shit food and worse teeth... Italy and Spain were both corrupt as fuck. To the point of humour.

Not so funny now? ... They're paralysed by institutional unaccountability...?
What are you talking about?
Italy is paralised in the attempt of saving its population from the virus, pretty much like every other nation on earth. Italy is just three weeks ahead of other Western countries, but the curve of contagion is pretty much identical everywhere.
 
But while the number of additional ICU cases (it's not new cases, new cases would be additional cases plus deaths) is going down, the overall number of ICU patients is at an all time high currently, over 4.000. This is far from being over, especially regarding the amount of deaths. Same for the overall number of hospitalized people, which is at the ATH of 32.400.
You are right, we are not over the hill, but statistically, if no other factors intervene, we should start seeing a decrease in total numbers within a week.
 
Obviously the lock down has helped! But it came to early and the Italian leftist government encouraged hug a China man day to stop corona "racism".

And yet, we know what patient zero, the guy who brought the virus to the country was a business man returning from a meeting in Munich. So much for your politically charged nonsense.
 
And yet, we know what patient zero, the guy who brought the virus to the country was a business man returning from a meeting in Munich. So much for your politically charged nonsense.
That patient zero is only the earliest patient found and has little meaning when we're not talking about the very root of the outbreak. Surely you don't believe that only one infected person travelled to Italy and if it wasn't for that ONE dastardly German lad you wouldn't have gotten the disease.
 
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What are you talking about?
Italy is paralised in the attempt of saving its population from the virus, pretty much like every other nation on earth. Italy is just three weeks ahead of other Western countries, but the curve of contagion is pretty much identical everywhere.
I wasn't intending to be serious, more musing on my childhood brainwashing (and the Gameboy colour someone stole from me in Rome once), i just hope Italy can get through this and back to trying to kick juventus off the top of the table asap
 
Not so funny now? ... They're paralysed by institutional unaccountability...?
Italy would have colonies on Mars if it wasn't paralyzed by institutional everything, LOL.

I'll just have you know that every day, every single day since this shit started, every single particular institution, even the smallest, has been screeching incessantly because they feel their members aren't being protected enough. Doctors, Nurses. Ambulance drivers. Janitors. Grocery stores. State bureau employees. Factory workers.
Every day, every single day some representative must have their voice heard that the people they represent aren't getting enough. Enough of what? Protection. Safety. DPIs. Compensation. Social security.

I mean, the National Institute for Social Security announced a 600€ bonus for people who can't work during the lockdown and when people flooded the system, there was a huge privacy problem with some bug letting one person see other people's data on their screen.

We just can't set apart our particular interests, and our institutions just can't not point the finger at someone else just because, even in a time of crisis.



I wasn't intending to be serious, more musing on my childhood brainwashing (and the Gameboy colour someone stole from me in Rome once)
Oh snap, I'm sorr...

i just hope Italy can get through this and back to trying to kick juventus off the top of the table asap
... on second thought, you deserved it, dude :messenger_beaming::messenger_winking:
 
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That patient zero is only the earliest patient found and has little meaning when we're not talking about the very root of the outbreak. Surely you don't believe that only one infected person travelled to Italy and if it wasn't for that ONE dastardly German lad you wouldn't have gotten the disease.
Wasn't it proven via DNA sampling of the virus that Italy has in fact the variant that came from Munich? And Italy locked down the country for Chinese at the end of January, much more early than anybody else. So yes, those 100.000+ cases in Italy are almost certainly the result of one person having a meeting in Germany. That's why the growth in other regions was so slow, there aren't multiple outbreak clusters.
 
That patient zero is only the earliest patient found and has little meaning when we're not talking about the very root of the outbreak. Surely you don't believe that only one infected person travelled to Italy and if it wasn't for that ONE dastardly German lad you wouldn't have gotten the disease.

Of course it would have come to the country in one way or another, like it has found a way in every country on earth. Yet we do know how it arrived since we can follow the genetic fingerprint of the virus. It's relevance is only a counterpoint to your attempt to add an unnecessary political note to it.
 
And yet, we know what patient zero, the guy who brought the virus to the country was a business man returning from a meeting in Munich. So much for your politically charged nonsense.
What about the 300k Chinese that returned to Italy from the new year? You are deluded and brainwashed.
 
Wasn't it proven via DNA sampling of the virus that Italy has in fact the variant that came from Munich? And Italy locked down the country for Chinese at the end of January, much more early than anybody else. So yes, those 100.000+ cases in Italy are almost certainly the result of one person having a meeting in Germany. That's why the growth in other regions was so slow, there aren't multiple outbreak clusters.
I don't know if it did or not, but it seems extremely unlikely to me that Italy had 1 single imported case + the rest was just community spread. I can tell you that in Portugal almost all of the initial positive cases were imported (mainly from Italy and Spain), and only later community spread cases started being observed.
Of course it would have come to the country in one way or another, like it has found a way in every country on earth. Yet we do know how it arrived since we can follow the genetic fingerprint of the virus. It's relevance is only a counterpoint to your attempt to add an unnecessary political note to it.
My note wasn't meant to be political at all, was just coming from a scientific point of view.
 
The lockdown is for mitigation. Without it, Italy as a nation would likely die out and we would be dealing with millions dead.

As for what China did "better," its called martial law. And its easier to do under an authoritarian regime.
 
Much like America they did it just a little late, the horse already left the barn as the door shut. Granted the numbers are high but without social distancing that number could be even higher. Expect to wait an additional 2-3 weeks to see things slowly steady off.
 
The lockdown is for mitigation. Without it, Italy as a nation would likely die out and we would be dealing with millions dead.

As for what China did "better," its called martial law. And its easier to do under an authoritarian regime.

We also have to take China's number with several pinches of salt. There are many reports of the crematoriums working 24/7 for weeks on end in Wuhan. How many people really died, how many people were infected, much like how the infection began, we shall never know.
 
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