Italy

I didn't say that Italy didn't have modern toilets too. Or that they were primitive. I only looked it up because of this report and a few others I had read

www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/85315

www.medscape.com/viewarticle/926390

wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/6/20-0301_article

Yes I have no doubt there are lots of people in individual houses as well as high rise apartments. However it is the high rise apartments that have been shown on TV.

Having read on here about all the Chinese workers in Northern Italy I have learned something too.

I still say close your toilet lids when flushing. I get really annoyed by people who have been to my house who don't bother. consequently I don't keep my toothbrush in the bathroom1! This is why are we being told all the rules over sharing bathrooms when someone has the virus.

www.businessinsider.com/flushing-toilet-seat-up-sprays-water-germs-2016-3?r=US&IR=T

re squat toilets - the only place I've been to where they're very common is India.
Their numbers of death from the virus are creeping up fast.
And they have a huge population, slightly less than China.
Only guessing, but I expect it's much more difficult to obtain accurate figures for infections and deaths from these 2 huge countries (maybe USA too) than from smaller countries in the west and middle east.

Luca I also don't understand why people don't rinse their dishes to remove the soap (and washing-up water). My mum and all my Italian relatives always did it, me too. Have had many a tiff asking himself to please do it! He just can't see the point.

Back in the 80's on holiday in France with my nieces, we stopped off at a bar for some drinks. The girls had put their clothes on over their swimming costumes (1 piece). The youngest one wanted to go to the loo. As she was wearing dungarees and it was a foot print loo, you can imagine the palaver in the cramped cubicle.
On a more serious note, using a footprint is supposed to be better for movements!!

I feel so sorry for the Italians living in the North/North West of the country. Their lives have been marred by land/mudslides over the years, burying people along the way.

I remember visiting a churchyard in Torbole where many lost their lives during the 1960's mudslides. Lots of children lost their lives too. The memory of the wall of pictures of the children stayed with me for ages and still will.
I also remember entering a long tunnel into Torbole from the airport and admit to being scared when I saw wire-netting on the slopes one side of the road.

I felt quite unsettled in that area with the Dolomites also rising above in the distance. It was perishing cold until we ventured into Venice where it was in the 80's.

Now the people are suffering adversity again, poor souls.

Silver lady. Your link was from 12 years ago. There remain a very very few squat toilets and certainly not i n houses. The Italians are amazed we don’t all have bidets and that we don’t rinse the washing up liquid off. As for this nonsense about Italians being more touchy feely have you not seen what people do nowadays here? On tv people hug if someone answers a moronic question right on Some daft quiz show.sorry but that made me cross.

As I said on the good morning thread the only one I know personally who has the virus is my sil who lives near Birmingham UK. No one is safe!
We live in a rural area and are lucky to have a large garden. The only place I have ever seen squat toilets is motorway picnic areas in France!! We are quite civilised here!!

vegansrock, I couldn't agree more.

No worries though. Those who don't believe in the transmission rate of the virus won't be around much longer.

vegansrock completely agree. My mum was from northern Italy, she was born just before the depression and yes, she went hungry during her childhood and knew all about deprivation, just as happened here. The house she was brought up in was detached with a front garden and land at the back which was used to grow vegetables. A duchess lives in a huge manor house on the little main road through her lovely rural village. There was no squat toilet (granted in the 50s, the toilet was a thunder box at the bottom of the garden, but then many houses in the UK had them then too!). Like the UK, the cities are full of high-rise apartments. But the north of Italy is very prosperous, it is a very wealthy area, it is not full of people living cheek-by-jowl.

A poster * Buddly* who lives in Italy dispelled a lot of the myths and was hurt by comments here.

silverlady I can’t believe all this “foreigners are different” nonsense. Yes Italians have a higher % of older people because their life expectancy is greater and the birthdate is lower - but guess what- the worse affected northern area is affluent- people have toilets, bidets, front doors, gated gardens, detached houses, running water, washing machines, expensive cars, grandparents have their own houses. We are going the same way in the growth of this virus. Take it seriously. Don’t believe that it’s only Chinese or other foreigners with their un- British ways of life. This is just ignorance and sweeping generalisations.

It wasn't Mrs Thatcher who told us to get on our bikes it was Norman Tebbitt. His father did just this after t he war.

The UK is currently following a steeper death curve than Italy was 14 days ago. There must be an awful lot of secret huggers and toilet squatters around!

Ah well! It's good to know that only foreign savages get infected with Covid-19 and it will give the civilised people of Little England a wide berth!

Ah well! It's good to know that only foreign savages get infected with Covid-19 and it will give the civilised people of Little England a wide berth!

GagaJo this is from Trip advisor www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g187768-i20-k1841838-Squat_Toilets_Is_it_True-Italy.html

They have squat toilets in Italy?

What what it is worth and I am no expert only from what I have read and observed. Both the Chinese and the Italians seem to live hand to jowl in multi generational family homes. A easy route for transmission. The Italians are a very touchy feely race with lots of hugs and kissing on greeting. Again the perfect vector for transmission. As someone posted further up our disjointed families might just save some of us. Maggie Thatcher told us to get on our bikes and look for work and families got split up. However those whose families visited on Mothers day may have put their elders at risk. I noticed on the television how close the old buildings were in Italy. a bit like the ones we have in York in the Shambles. So close you could shake hands. Also all the one we saw singing on their balconies in high rise apartments probably all used the same entrance and exits.
i certainly wouldn't have gone out on the balconies like that the only safe people would have been those right at the top and any virus shed would have drifted down to those below. I know we have high rise apartments here but I think there are probably more living in houses with their own front doors. Apart from the idiots who went out this weekend as if it were a holiday I am hoping the way we live might protect us a little bit but who knows. They say London is a hot spot because of the crowds we had there and close proximity of people but Wolverhampton is a hot spot too? Probably because of the high concentration of Asian families who again live in multi generational families. lastly elderly people living in OAP homes are potentially at risk because a relative might bring the virus in and infect all the residents! Oh and on top of that both the Chinese and in the older parts of Italy they use squat toilets and infected people can shed virus through their feces. So make sure you put the lid down on your toilet before you flush tp prevent Fecal Florl bloom!

shropshirelass have you looked at the graphs and the trajectory?

Italy has a high aged population, the average age of the deaths there is 81.

Here you are
www.kentonline.co.uk/whitstable/news/council-deplore-businesses-encouraging-large-gatherings-224217/

No Susie. Do you have a link?

Did you read of the dreadful scenes in Whitstable yesterday at the Oyster Shack? Why the police didn’t go in and arrest the staff there for endangering public health is beyond me.

We need to lockdown now. So many people are behaving as normal, even when they are being asked not to. There could be 250,000 extra deaths if we don’t follow social distancing.

Yes this is frightening. I have to admit to being completely preoccupied with it and have been for over two weeks.