COVID topic vol 2

[UK-with-kids]

The UK government has announced that a new strain has emerged in southern England and has already infected at least 1,000 people. The mutation is in the spike protein which is the target of the main three vaccines. It is too early to say how serious a development this is.

Edit: link to a primary source: https://www.cogconsortium.uk/news_item/ ... mutations/

[UK-with-kids]

I have a bit of sympathy for the thrust of @J_'s point as we do indeed have a large and unhealthy population in Western countries. That's due to a mix of stuff like having kids grow up in overly sterile environments, unhealthy diets and lifestyles, and of course finding ways of keeping more people alive for longer through various medical advances (and this is huge). I think I mentioned before that this pandemic is more like 1957 than 1918, in that it kills off the weaker individuals. It's just that in 1957 most of them were already dead from other causes. Whereas now they are very much alive and being killed by Covid instead.

However, the reality is that we have a lot of loved ones who are unhealthy and/or just old and fragile. And most societies want to protect them. So the rant is pretty pointless in that regard. As well as partially inaccurate as @Jacob has explained.

[7Wannabe5]

The correlations with age and gender are stronger than the correlation with a co-morbidity such as obesity. So, for instance, a fit man in his 70s is much more likely to die from Covid than an obese woman in her 50s.

[J_]

@Jacob thanks for your further elaboration. I have (visual) edited my rant in such a way that a good health for about 93% of all people helps you to sustain a contamination with Covdid 19 without complications. I hope that you now can agree that I am accurate.

@UK-with-kids, nice to have some sympathy and understanding. I also am glad that societies protect and help the ones who are unhealthy or fragile and struck by the virus. For friends and relatives who are not yet struck by the virus but are not in good health I try to convince them that their health can be much better if... I know and have expierienced that only a small part of them is interested in improving their health. Health is not a given, you have to work on it tirelessly. And the gist of my rant is that more people become aware that anyone can improve his/hers health.

[IlliniDave]

Well, after 10 months or so, the first person I personally know succumbed to covid. He actually died nearly a month ago. But I now rely on my dad for a lot of news from back home, and frankly he sucks ass at it! But that aside, the deceased was my dentist growing up, and one of the adult leaders that used to take us scouting types up into the boreal wilderness every year. He was 91, and was bushwhacking in the Northwoods into his early 80s.

RIP Doc Leon, and smooth paddling. 2020 sucks.

[George the original one]

Contact tracing in Oregon, one of the least infected states, completely broke down through November. I saw a list of how many contact tracing staff were needed for current infection levels and it appears only California (30%) and New York (40%) have made serious attempts at hiring enough staff. Oregon has 15%. Most states have 15% or less. I think Virginia was an exception at around 20%.

[George the original one]

Well, after 10 months or so, the first person I personally know succumbed to covid.

This will become more common as the USA passes 1 death for every 1,000 people sometime around Christmas. At the CDC death rate of 0.65%, that means 51-52 million people will have been infected.

[Peanut]

@7w5: Is that statistically sound? I mean, did you run the numbers yourself, as I know you are plenty capable of doing that—just curious. I hold in my mind the images of my 78-yr old asthmatic, skinny as a rail uncle who fully recovered and the 47-yr old German teacher from Wisconsin who had obesity and died. Maybe my point is more like, a 47-yr old woman should not be dying of anything like covid, period. The fact that it is happening at all is extremely concerning. Men or women in their 70s dying is not considered a very unusual occurrence even for the healthy.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09 ... eyre-young

Every time I admittedly anecdotally have morbidly clicked on a link about a young person (20s) or even a teen who died of covid the pictures tell the same story. I remember one of a young man whose family described him as strong and healthy but the article revealed he was 300lbs. Studies have shown parents don’t recognize when their own children are overweight. There was a terrible account from a specialist about seeing kids who have gained 40-60 lbs in lockdown and are developing early diabetes.

[ducknald_don]

I think I read that for every age group, getting Covid roughly doubles their chance of dying in that year. I know in the UK the media loved to pick out the cases of younger people dying and present that as common. The reality was somewhat different.

[7Wannabe5]

@peanut:

Data keeps rolling in, so I did my best to round up some recent studies on the correlations. I also tried to make sure the studies were published by reputable sources with no reason for bias.

As you can see if you roll over the Italian statistics which are based on almost 60,000 deaths, the death rate for men in their 70s is 13.4% and the death rate for women in their 50s is only .3% That means that if you put 300 women in their 50s and 300 men in their 70s on a cruise ship and they all contracted Covid, approximately 1 of the women and 44 (!) of the men would end up dying.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/111 ... -of-april/

The point of the below article is to convince people of the risk to obese young people, but the study indicates that even the worst case correlation with severe obesity, which is in young people under 50, is 36% increased risk of death among hospitalized patients. The correlation between severe obesity and death goes down with age and is generally 26%. So, for instance, based on just this statistic, even a severely obese woman in her 70s might have better chance of survival than a man who is not obese in his 70s. However, the gender gap also decreases with the oldest groups, so maybe call it 50/50. IOW, if the cruise ship was loaded with 300 men in their 70s chosen at random and 300 SEVERELY obese women in their 70s, it is still quite likely that fewer of the women would die!

https://www.heart.org/en/news/2020/11/1 ... ions-death

Of course, this just speaks to severe obesity, not complete cluster of possible co-morbidities, but the fraction of patients in "unknown if co-morbidity exists" is quite large, and some of the co-morbidities such as high blood pressure are very common.

I apologize if my initial reply to J was perhaps a bit rude. Chalk it up to tough math love from forum-mate, because one suggested reason why more men die is that they are more cavalier in their risk-taking. People who believe in free will tend to over-focus on factors they can change such as diet and exercise vs. those that they can't such as age or gender.

[Ego]

The Covid Risk Calculator pretty clearly shows that otherwise healthy men in their seventies have a substantially higher risk.
https://covid19risktools.com:8443/riskcalculator

[J_]

@7Wannabe5 thanks for your appologize.

What all those statistics above show is that the chance to die or get otherwise long lasting problems from Covid 19 is increasing a lot if you have not a healthy body. As unfortunately many people are collecting diseases during their life, many older people have a not perfect working immune system or have other co-morbidities.

A collection of scientific medicins has written about the prevention and reverse of disease by eating the right food. See the books of Neal Barnard, Caldwell Esselsteyn Jr, Michael Greger MD and J. Fuhrmann. (All american doctors, I have read/studied, from the last one I have made a summary in Dutch for a friend). You can also find contributions of them on youtube. I have learned to get rid of of my astma-disease and to get rid of some overweight, both in my fifties.

As I reported in Covid vol 1 in March/April about a befriended family of 4 here in the village in Austria (man/woman begin 40 children 10 and 12), the husband got infected by Covid and infected the others. He recovered easily, the children did hardly notice it and the wife got very ill and was on the border of hospitalization. But she recovered in about 6 weeks. Before she was healthy and had no illness whatsoever.

And just in November another befriended couple were infected too by Covid in the Netherlands. He (74) was asymptomatic, and she (76) was only mildly sick and recovered in three weeks. She was healthy and had no illness whatoever.

As I stated above it is really helpfull to strive for a healthy body and to get rid of any medication. As Jacob stated it is no guarantee, but as I stated it may give you the best weapon you can get, your age is not so important at all, but your immune condition is the relevant factor.

[7Wannabe5]

@J:

That is definitely not what the above statistics indicate. Try the calculator Ego linked.

[CS]

I like this explanation of how the vaccine works:

https://twitter.com/WheatNOil/status/13 ... 22368?s=20

[J_]

That Covid risk calculator ist just a repeator of statistics. As I stated, in the western world, with bad life styles regarding health, most people get illnesses during their life, and as lives accumulated by getting older, most older people has an impaired immune-system and other co-morbidities. That risk becomes visible in the statistics and that calculator repeats that.
What that calculator does not do is comparing people with intact (perfect) working immune systems with those who has an impaired immune system.

And that is the real counting thing to my, and those scientists which I mentioned above, opinion. It is exactly what ere stands for. Study unbiased knowledge, take the best advise you can find and apply that knowledge to yourself if you want.

So, if you want a body with the most perfect immune-system and by implication have the best weapon against Covid 19, start to apply such a food regimen and life-style.

[7Wannabe5]

The calculator corrects for the known and common co-morbidities. You can compare an individual with any combination of co- morbidities with an individual of the same age/gender who is absent co-morbidities. Of course, you are free to believe that there is a strata of health to be achieved beyond level of simply not having any of the co-morbidities listed in the calculator and/or any level of being overweight, but this is not a scientific belief unless this difference is in some way measurable.

For instance, it is my personal anecdotal belief that sexual vigor in men over the age of 50 is better indication of life years remaining than BMI or exercise habits, although these three factor are also positively correlated, but absent a large population long-term study, I wouldn’t bet the bank on it.

[enigmaT120]

That last bit is reassuring.

[ertyu]

For instance, it is my personal anecdotal belief that sexual vigor in men over the age of 50 is better indication of life years remaining than BMI or exercise habits, although these three factor are also positively correlated, but absent a large population long-term study, I wouldn’t bet the bank on it.

This is correct. ED is often a warning sign of blood vessel blockages and heart disease. Vessels lined with plaque mean less blood supply to that area means you can't get it up. Men with ED have a way way elevated chance of getting a heart attack. For data to quantify this, ask someone who isn't an INFP and has attention to detail.

[UK-with-kids]

The UK government has announced that a new strain has emerged in southern England and has already infected at least 1,000 people. The mutation is in the spike protein which is the target of the main three vaccines. It is too early to say how serious a development this is.

Edit: link to a primary source: https://www.cogconsortium.uk/news_item/ ... mutations/

Statement from the UK's Chief Medical Officer today about the new CV strain which has been spreading in southeast England:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/stat ... f-covid-19

The UK has informed the WHO that the new strain is spreading more rapidly than previous strains. Urgent work is underway to assess whether it's any more dangerous and if vaccine efficacy is affected.

[Peanut]

@7w5: Thanks for that comparison and breakdown. I knew my uncle was lucky but it is interesting to see it quantified.

@J: The impression I have is people over 70 or 80, no matter how fit or healthy, all have some level of age-related impairment to their immune systems. It is known vaccines do not work on seniors as well. This is why they get higher or (like our family doctor who runs half marathons) booster doses of flu vaccine for example. It has been suggested that vaccines do not work as well on those who have obesity either. This is why I wonder how well the covid vaccine will work on both these vulnerable groups.