On Wed, 07 Jul 2021 13:10:10 -0700, Siri Cruise says...
>. It was impossible
> for the patients to understand what was killing them.
It was their PRE-EXISTING conditions.
According to the CDC: "(In only) 6% of deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause
mentioned."
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Only 6% Without Co-Morbidities? The Truth About COVID Deaths
Social media is home to many misinterpretations of a recent CDC report on co-
morbidities and the coronavirus. Epidemiologist Justin Lessler sets things
straight.
Since COVID-19 first began circulating within the United States, public health
officials have known that those with underlying medical conditions face higher
risks for severe illness and death if they contract the disease.
A recent report from the CDC appears to drill down that point with striking
numbers, showing that 94% of US deaths involving COVID-19 since February were
also associated with other conditions, or co-morbidities.
According to the CDC: "For 6% of [coronavirus disease 2019] deaths, COVID-19
was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition
to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per
death. The number of deaths with each condition or cause is shown for all
deaths and by age groups."
https://twitter.com/JustinLessler/status/1300131965132300291
The most common co-morbidities, according to death records, include influenza
and pneumonia, respiratory failure, hypertension, diabetes, and cardiac arrest.
The report has sparked confusion on the topic and some misleading narratives on
social media, but Lessler emphasizes that these findings are not surprising.
COVID-19 deaths are not easy to predict or prevent based on co-morbidities, he
says, and the virus is not only a concern for those with medical problems.
"[The report] surely includes some new data, but the general finding-that co-
morbidities increase your risk of dying from COVID 19, is not a surprise at
all," Lessler says. "This would be true for the flu or cancer or chicken pox.
Really almost any disease you can name, your risks for death increase if you
have other diseases and other conditions that make you sick."
Here, Lessler, an infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins
University's Bloomberg School of Public Health, clarifies the CDC findings and
their significance:
Question:
Can you break down what the data mean?
Answer:
The importance of this CDC data is showing the co-morbidities in people who
have died with COVID-19, in hopes of better understanding the risk factors for
death. For almost everyone, I think we can be confident they would have lived
longer without COVID-19.
But it's important to understand that some of the co-morbidities listed are
actually downstream effects of COVID-19, meaning they are symptoms. For
example, respiratory failure. Someone could have on their death certificate
that they died of both COVID and respiratory failure, but that probably means
that COVID-19 caused the respiratory failure, which caused them to die. It's
impossible for us to know the individual scenarios from death certificates, but
the prevalence of respiratory factors [in the CDC findings] are consistent with
being downstream conditions.
Question:
How do you think some people may be misinterpreting or misunderstanding this?
Answer:
To some extent I think some people are willfully misinterpreting to treat this
as a "gotcha" moment to undermine the seriousness of COVID-19. They're not
taking time to actually understand the data.
But I also think there's legitimate confusion, because the general public may
be inclined to think of deaths as having one single cause and that's not the
way we look at things as epidemiologists and public health people. We think of
component causes. So, for example, you can die from drinking too much and heart
failure, because drinking led to heart failure. So a table like this listing
multiple component causes of death, without individual context, can be
confusing.
Question:
Can you explain the "200,000 excess deaths" you referenced in your recent
tweet?
Answer:
We can observe trends from the number of deaths reported each year, on a weekly
basis. When we see large deviations in the numbers for a time period, we call
that excess deaths. Looking at 2020 since March, the raw number of excess
deaths is 200,000 more people than a normal year. When we try to understand
that, COVID-19 is the most rational and likely explanation. If you don't
believe it's COVID-19, try to pinpoint why this year has been so different than
any other. Why would a new disease that kills people not be the cause?
Question:
What is the takeaway for people who don't have co-morbidities?
Answer:
If you aren't aware that you have any co-morbidities, that doesn't mean you
should treat that as carte blanche to go out, get infected, and not worry about
consequences. Co-morbidities are frequent in the population, particularly in
the US, where tens of millions of people have heart disease and diabetes and
other conditions-and many don't even know it. And again, many of the co-
morbidities in the CDC data could be downstream effects. Just because you don't
have respiratory problems now doesn't mean if you get COVID-19 you won't have
respiratory problems.
Certainly if you know you have a co-morbidity, that's reason to be extra
careful. Or if you have a family member who has a co-morbidity, be extra
careful when visiting them. But I also want to emphasize that just because some
people have more risk factors or presumably less long to live than others
doesn't make those deaths any less tragic.
https://www.futurity.org/cdc-covid-19-comorbidities-2436032-2/
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Liberalism Really IS a Disease