PlagueWatch 2020-23 - Coronavirus

[Wheat/"/"/"]

So I appreciate the challenging questions posed by Wheat and Ultrarunner. Hope to offer a response that is not inflammatory. But this seems similar to a patient's mother who challenged me. I stated that current number of Pediatric MISC patients and COVID mortality, and she fired back that 1. they were all fat weren't they. They had underlying medical conditions. then 2. COVID was a false label for their deaths. This woman is an ICU nurse that attended the deaths of scores of Adults dying with COVID in her rural hospital. And she said this without irony. All I was addressing was methods to prevent COVID passing to children like wearing masks.

So when I see a study that says that 70-80%% of COVID patients/ICU/Deaths were overweight/obese, and 70-80% of the population are overweight/obese, my first instinct is that this virus is hitting everyone roughly equally, not to blame those for their weight, or project that one is safe because they are not obese, or don't have asthma, or do have blue eyes. The obesity did not put them in the hospital, or flood their lungs with pus or cause coagulopathies. Are we not all Americans? Are we not all suffering? can't we all play a role to prevent COVID. If I show you the picture of the 31 year old pregnant mother, farmer who died in our county, would the lack of a high BMI in her photo make any difference? The nine year old in Durham? Can't we all take extra precautions to prevent the danger to any of us at risk?

The tone that we use to ascribe risk factors slips easily into causative blame, and can blind us to the many exceptions that suffer just as equally

Against my better judgement I’m going to post this reply, but I’m not going to get into a long drawn out debate. Just offering this opinion while, respectfully, acknowledging those here that may not agree with me.

To be clear, I was not trying to place any blame on anyone who is obese by posting that link, just pointing out the facts, as determined by the CDC, on who this virus is the most dangerous for.

Blaming anyone other than those who allowed the virus to spread in the first place is pointless and not productive to facing the issue at hand.

Not sure how it goes from me posting a CDC study, to me defending my compassion for others, but I guess it is the internet after all.

You stated, “The obesity did not put them in the hospital, or flood their lungs with pus or cause coagulopathies”.
That’s true, the COVID 19 virus initiated that. But to ignore, or not focus on, obesity as a huge contributing factor as to why our hospitals are overwhelmed and death rates are high is not facing an unpleasant problem directly.

I don’t think we’ve, as a society, put enough emphasis on the elevated dangers of being overweight and COVID was my sole point by sharing that study link.

I feel as compassionate as you for those facing severe health issues, all races and weights, due to this virus, and wish I had the answer on to how to stop it.

A client of mine is an infectious disease doctor, PHD at an Ivy League school. He’s in the forefront studying COVID and how it relates to blood types. He made a comment to me that, at some point, he thinks everyone will get, or has had, COVID…it’s that infectious.

We can’t stop it.

If that’s the case, it seems to me that maybe we should accept that fact as a country, and change how we approach dealing with COVID. We need to become more laser focused on protecting those most at risk, like the elderly, the obese, and those with these co-morbidity issues while building natural immunity, along with the help of vaccines, with the rest of society as they go about daily life.

We need to go forward with living as best we can.

In case there is any doubt, I believe we should all get vaccinated. I believe we should all quarantine if we don’t feel well.
But we have to move forward with no fear.

The studies show most adults and kids are not at great risk of death. We should take confidence from that fact. Let’s be optimistic, not pessimistic all the time.

Unfortunately, life is not fair, and we can’t eliminate all risk.

We also can’t shut this entire country down. We just can’t. It’s not a practical solution to this Covid problem we all face and we are creating other huge problems by attempting this course of action.

Let’s drop the political nature of all this, from both sides of the aisle, and totally focus on helping those that the science has shown are at the greatest risk. Let’s accept that we simply can’t protect everyone from this virus and just do the best we can.

In short, let’s try to work together and focus on the heart of the problem…those most at risk from something we can’t control…and get society back on track.

[bundabergdevil]

Our hospital was proactive and acquired a fair bit of this recently. Long and short of it is that is it a monoclonal antibody that binds spike protein; best used early in infection. No data to support use in hospitalized patients.

For us, the potential patient population is rather narrowly defined: they have to be age 12 or over, 40 kg total body weight or over, laboratory confirmation of SARS-CoV-2 infection (for us, that means a PCR), not sick enough to be hospitalized, not sick enough to require oxygen, but with a risk factor that portends a high likelihood of progressing to severe disease.

Its use in our facility is tightly controlled by me, my colleague, and an ID pharmacist.

It makes sense that flooding the body with pre-made antibodies that bind the virus early in infection would potentially be helpful. You could think of it as “passive immunization,” as opposed to “active immunization.” In active immunization, we give you the antigen and allow your immune system to make the antibodies; in passive immunization we just give you the antibodies. When you think of this way, it becomes clear that it would be better if people would go get active immunization so they would already have pre-formed antibodies and memory cells to help them fight off the disease; barring that, if you are a person at high risk of bad disease who, for some reason has not been vaccinated and you are in the early stages of the illness, this passive antibody is certainly better than nothing.

Do you send your SiL your DBR posts? Would she even be able to understand them? You'd have to be a pretty smart idiot to make all that mumbo jumbo up!

[FUBARDoorBuster]

Against my better judgement I’m going to post this reply, but I’m not going to get into a long drawn out debate. Just offering this opinion while, respectfully, acknowledging those here that may not agree with me.

To be clear, I was not trying to place any blame on anyone who is obese by posting that link, just pointing out the facts, as determined by the CDC, on who this virus is the most dangerous for.

Blaming anyone other than those who allowed the virus to spread in the first place is pointless and not productive to facing the issue at hand.

Not sure how it goes from me posting a CDC study, to me defending my compassion for others, but I guess it is the internet after all.

You stated, “The obesity did not put them in the hospital, or flood their lungs with pus or cause coagulopathies”.
That’s true, the COVID 19 virus initiated that. But to ignore, or not focus on, obesity as a huge contributing factor as to why our hospitals are overwhelmed and death rates are high is not facing an unpleasant problem directly.

I don’t think we’ve, as a society, put enough emphasis on the elevated dangers of being overweight and COVID was my sole point by sharing that study link.

I feel as compassionate as you for those facing severe health issues, all races and weights, due to this virus, and wish I had the answer on to how to stop it.

A client of mine is an infectious disease doctor, PHD at an Ivy League school. He’s in the forefront studying COVID and how it relates to blood types. He made a comment to me that, at some point, he thinks everyone will get, or has had, COVID…it’s that infectious.

We can’t stop it.

If that’s the case, it seems to me that maybe we should accept that fact as a country, and change how we approach dealing with COVID. We need to become more laser focused on protecting those most at risk, like the elderly, the obese, and those with these co-morbidity issues while building natural immunity, along with the help of vaccines, with the rest of society as they go about daily life.

We need to go forward with living as best we can.

In case there is any doubt, I believe we should all get vaccinated. I believe we should all quarantine if we don’t feel well.
But we have to move forward with no fear.

The studies show most adults and kids are not at great risk of death. We should take confidence from that fact. Let’s be optimistic, not pessimistic all the time.

Unfortunately, life is not fair, and we can’t eliminate all risk.

We also can’t shut this entire country down. We just can’t. It’s not a practical solution to this Covid problem we all face and we are creating other huge problems by attempting this course of action.

Let’s drop the political nature of all this, from both sides of the aisle, and totally focus on helping those that the science has shown are at the greatest risk. Let’s accept that we simply can’t protect everyone from this virus and just do the best we can.

In short, let’s try to work together and focus on the heart of the problem…those most at risk from something we can’t control…and get society back on track.

Thanks for your explanations. Let's find some areas where we agree
1. Everyone should get vaccinated. If for no other reason, then to show compassion to others by limiting our risk to others during our interactions in a normalizing society
2. Certain risk factors make COVID more dangerous for some. Some of these are unknowns- such as possible unknown genetic conditions like Von Willebrand, or G6PD Deficiency, some are unavoidable medical phenomenon- cancer, asthma, autoimmune disorders, familial hypertension, and some might be issues that the medical community have tried for decades to address, such as obesity, smoking, alcohol use. I would propose that Primary care has been obsessed with finding answers for these "preventable" conditions long before COVID arrived
3. As a nation, and an economic people, we will overcome this better when we can control the inevitable waves that threaten our medical resources as COVID reaches out and touches every person. When ICU care is overwhelmed, we as a compassionate society should respond, or predict a response, and do everything we can to limit the effect of that wave, which may include increased use of masks, or other preventive measures.

Would this seem like common ground?
I would just state that many of us feel that COVID is not "something we can't control" as we see different responses in various states that have widely effects regarding the new Delta variant. I would propose that we can protect those at risk best, by doing everything we can to limit its spread to any of us, including those at most risk until 1. Hospital resources, including staff, can adequately respond and 2. further therapeutics are developed. As always, we probably share more ideas in common than we realize.

[Wheat/"/"/"]

Thanks for your explanations. Let's find some areas where we agree
1. Everyone should get vaccinated. If for no other reason, then to show compassion to others by limiting our risk to others during our interactions in a normalizing society
2. Certain risk factors make COVID more dangerous for some. Some of these are unknowns- such as possible unknown genetic conditions like Von Willebrand, or G6PD Deficiency, some are unavoidable medical phenomenon- cancer, asthma, autoimmune disorders, familial hypertension, and some might be issues that the medical community have tried for decades to address, such as obesity, smoking, alcohol use. I would propose that Primary care has been obsessed with finding answers for these "preventable" conditions long before COVID arrived
3. As a nation, and an economic people, we will overcome this better when we can control the inevitable waves that threaten our medical resources as COVID reaches out and touches every person. When ICU care is overwhelmed, we as a compassionate society should respond, or predict a response, and do everything we can to limit the effect of that wave, which may include increased use of masks, or other preventive measures.

Would this seem like common ground?
I would just state that many of us feel that COVID is not "something we can't control" as we see different responses in various states that have widely effects regarding the new Delta variant. I would propose that we can protect those at risk best, by doing everything we can to limit its spread to any of us, including those at most risk until 1. Hospital resources, including staff, can adequately respond and 2. further therapeutics are developed. As always, we probably share more ideas in common than we realize.

Thanks for the reasoned reply. We’re not that far apart, and have plenty of common ground.

We all want what’s best for everyone. It’s finding the acceptable balance between how we respond to a serious issue like Covid, and the unintended creation of even more problems that’s the difficult part for us all.

[Jeffrey]

Thanks for your explanations. Let's find some areas where we agree….

As always, we probably share more ideas in common than we realize.

Absolutely, we should all be able to agree that UNC sucks!

[camion]

Absolutely, we should all be able to agree that UNC sucks!

Uh, UNC blows.

[rsvman]

Against my better judgement I’m going to post this reply, but I’m not going to get into a long drawn out debate. Just offering this opinion while, respectfully, acknowledging those here that may not agree with me.

To be clear, I was not trying to place any blame on anyone who is obese by posting that link, just pointing out the facts, as determined by the CDC, on who this virus is the most dangerous for.

Blaming anyone other than those who allowed the virus to spread in the first place is pointless and not productive to facing the issue at hand.

Not sure how it goes from me posting a CDC study, to me defending my compassion for others, but I guess it is the internet after all.

You stated, “The obesity did not put them in the hospital, or flood their lungs with pus or cause coagulopathies”.
That’s true, the COVID 19 virus initiated that. But to ignore, or not focus on, obesity as a huge contributing factor as to why our hospitals are overwhelmed and death rates are high is not facing an unpleasant problem directly.

I don’t think we’ve, as a society, put enough emphasis on the elevated dangers of being overweight and COVID was my sole point by sharing that study link.

I feel as compassionate as you for those facing severe health issues, all races and weights, due to this virus, and wish I had the answer on to how to stop it.

A client of mine is an infectious disease doctor, PHD at an Ivy League school. He’s in the forefront studying COVID and how it relates to blood types. He made a comment to me that, at some point, he thinks everyone will get, or has had, COVID…it’s that infectious.

We can’t stop it.

If that’s the case, it seems to me that maybe we should accept that fact as a country, and change how we approach dealing with COVID. We need to become more laser focused on protecting those most at risk, like the elderly, the obese, and those with these co-morbidity issues while building natural immunity, along with the help of vaccines, with the rest of society as they go about daily life.

We need to go forward with living as best we can.

In case there is any doubt, I believe we should all get vaccinated. I believe we should all quarantine if we don’t feel well.
But we have to move forward with no fear.

The studies show most adults and kids are not at great risk of death. We should take confidence from that fact. Let’s be optimistic, not pessimistic all the time.

Unfortunately, life is not fair, and we can’t eliminate all risk.

We also can’t shut this entire country down. We just can’t. It’s not a practical solution to this Covid problem we all face and we are creating other huge problems by attempting this course of action.

Let’s drop the political nature of all this, from both sides of the aisle, and totally focus on helping those that the science has shown are at the greatest risk. Let’s accept that we simply can’t protect everyone from this virus and just do the best we can.

In short, let’s try to work together and focus on the heart of the problem…those most at risk from something we can’t control…and get society back on track.

Nobody is shutting the country down. Nobody is even talking about shutting the country down at this point. It sounds like you are stuck in March or April of 2020. We have moved forward. We are living our lives.

[Wheat/"/"/"]

Nobody is shutting the country down. Nobody is even talking about shutting the country down at this point. It sounds like you are stuck in March or April of 2020. We have moved forward. We are living our lives.

With all due respect, tell that to our Canadian friends who own property in the States, pay taxes, and are denied entry into the US at the border due to Covid restrictions.

[YmoBeThere]

With all due respect, tell that to our Canadian friends who own property in the States, pay taxes, and are denied entry into the US at the border due to Covid restrictions.

This was implemented in March 2020 I believe. So, what has changed recently to impact this?

[Wheat/"/"/"]

This was implemented in March 2020 I believe. So, what has changed recently to impact this?

The restrictions were set to end August 21st, but were extended by the Department of Homeland Security a few days ago.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Against my better judgement I’m going to post this reply, but I’m not going to get into a long drawn out debate. Just offering this opinion while, respectfully, acknowledging those here that may not agree with me.

To be clear, I was not trying to place any blame on anyone who is obese by posting that link, just pointing out the facts, as determined by the CDC, on who this virus is the most dangerous for.

Blaming anyone other than those who allowed the virus to spread in the first place is pointless and not productive to facing the issue at hand.

Not sure how it goes from me posting a CDC study, to me defending my compassion for others, but I guess it is the internet after all.

You stated, “The obesity did not put them in the hospital, or flood their lungs with pus or cause coagulopathies”.
That’s true, the COVID 19 virus initiated that. But to ignore, or not focus on, obesity as a huge contributing factor as to why our hospitals are overwhelmed and death rates are high is not facing an unpleasant problem directly.

I don’t think we’ve, as a society, put enough emphasis on the elevated dangers of being overweight and COVID was my sole point by sharing that study link.

I feel as compassionate as you for those facing severe health issues, all races and weights, due to this virus, and wish I had the answer on to how to stop it.

A client of mine is an infectious disease doctor, PHD at an Ivy League school. He’s in the forefront studying COVID and how it relates to blood types. He made a comment to me that, at some point, he thinks everyone will get, or has had, COVID…it’s that infectious.

We can’t stop it.

If that’s the case, it seems to me that maybe we should accept that fact as a country, and change how we approach dealing with COVID. We need to become more laser focused on protecting those most at risk, like the elderly, the obese, and those with these co-morbidity issues while building natural immunity, along with the help of vaccines, with the rest of society as they go about daily life.

We need to go forward with living as best we can.

In case there is any doubt, I believe we should all get vaccinated. I believe we should all quarantine if we don’t feel well.
But we have to move forward with no fear.

The studies show most adults and kids are not at great risk of death. We should take confidence from that fact. Let’s be optimistic, not pessimistic all the time.

Unfortunately, life is not fair, and we can’t eliminate all risk.

We also can’t shut this entire country down. We just can’t. It’s not a practical solution to this Covid problem we all face and we are creating other huge problems by attempting this course of action.

Let’s drop the political nature of all this, from both sides of the aisle, and totally focus on helping those that the science has shown are at the greatest risk. Let’s accept that we simply can’t protect everyone from this virus and just do the best we can.

In short, let’s try to work together and focus on the heart of the problem…those most at risk from something we can’t control…and get society back on track.

I agree with most of what to say. But I would classify "living in fear" as very politicized language. It insinuates thst being careful and following science is fearful. And supposes reckless behavior is somehow "brave."

Not wearing a mask isn't brave. I see a lot of indignant folks out there who take great pride in not being intimidated into wearing masks. That's just dumb and/or ill-informed.

Calling people who are being careful with their own health and the well-being of loved ones "scared" is wildly myopic.

[Wheat/"/"/"]

I agree with most of what to say. But I would classify "living in fear" as very politicized language. It insinuates thst being careful and following science is fearful. And supposes reckless behavior is somehow "brave."

Not wearing a mask isn't brave. I see a lot of indignant folks out there who take great pride in not being intimidated into wearing masks. That's just dumb and/or ill-informed.

Calling people who are being careful with their own health and the well-being of loved ones "scared" is wildly myopic.

“But we have to move forward with no fear.”….was my actual comment. It was meant as encouragement, nothing more.

[Bostondevil]

BMI should never be used to label a person overweight or obese on an individual level and we all keep doing it. It was designed to be a population measure. The levels used to determine the labels "overweight" and "obese" were normalized to young males in the first place.

Overweight is not obese (and the 80% was people who were overweight or obese). There have been enough studies where overweight people fared better than underweight people (yeah, I want to see most of them reproduced, but that finding has happened and it's happened more than once). The CDC report included overweight with obese in the 80%.

So, when I see results reporting that overweight and obesity this or overweight and obesity that, first of all, I want to see if they used BMI to determine who is overweight/obese, then if they did that - which they shouldn't - I want to see if they age adjusted the definitions of overweight and obese, which they should. If they didn't do either of those things, then one must take the results with a grain of salt and not make sweeping statements because, as I said in a previous post, there are other factors that are associated with obesity as defined by BMI and it is high time we started looking at those factors instead of deciding that everything is linked to obesity instead of trying to parse out the factors that are associated with obesity.

Quality of care for obese people lags behind the non obese. We do not, in general, provide the same level of medical care to the obese. We don't know all the reasons. Addressing the problem is a relatively new area of quality of care research, but a fairly significant problem seems to be bias on the part of the doctors who care for them. Medical professionals expect the obese to do worse and consequently do not give as much time/attention to their cases. (More research is needed.)

Back to studying covid, given the distribution of hospitalizations and death by age, any study that tries to look at obesity alone is flawed. You cannot look at obesity alone, you have to adjust for age unless you are looking only at a cohort of people who are roughly the same age.

[Bluedog]

Saying people are living their lives because there aren't stay at home orders isn't saying that much. I guess everyone can gauge what they're comfortable with and act accordingly, but I'm looking forward to the time again when my 4 year old is allowed to talk at lunch and stick his tongue out for the first snowfall. Let alone taking them to restaurants and traveling like I used to love to do...I agree that there is a balance and we cannot stop living our lives forever. I think once vaccines are approved for the kiddos, I hope to live my life again...I admit I do live in some "fear" despite being fully vaccinated, young and healthy. It's not always the most logical but is hard to have a mindset shift. And my local community is 85% vaccinated...(most everybody was still wearing a mask and the town started mandating it this week, with the state following up with its own mandate starting next week).

[robed deity]

“But we have to move forward with no fear.”….was my actual comment. It was meant as encouragement, nothing more.

Re: Florida, if the dichotomy is acting "too fearful" or "too reckless", it's pretty clearly the latter right now, judging by the numbers.

[johnb]

Hi All!

I have a school project…

Anybody have thoughts on the decline trust in important institutions like the government, the media, the medical establishment, business (big and small), the Internet, and on and on.

Thoughts on why, psychologically, this has happened and, more important, the impact it has on ourselves and our society. Any thoughts on how trust can be rebuilt?

Suggestions welcome!!

[JasonEvans]

Last night's Seth Meyers A Closer Look on Ivermectin was pretty darn funny...

[bundabergdevil]

Hi All!

I have a school project…

Anybody have thoughts on the decline trust in important institutions like the government, the media, the medical establishment, business (big and small), the Internet, and on and on.

Thoughts on why, psychologically, this has happened and, more important, the impact it has on ourselves and our society. Any thoughts on how trust can be rebuilt?

Suggestions welcome!!

If you haven’t already used it as a resource, Edelman releases an annual “trust barometer “ in conjunction with the World Economic Forum. Lots of good insights and info.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/01/pandemic-mistrust-government-global-survey/

[CameronBornAndBred]

Hi All!

I have a school project…

Anybody have thoughts on the decline trust in important institutions like the government, the media, the medical establishment, business (big and small), the Internet, and on and on.

Thoughts on why, psychologically, this has happened and, more important, the impact it has on ourselves and our society. Any thoughts on how trust can be rebuilt?

Suggestions welcome!!

I'd say that everything outlined in that sentence is BECAUSE of the internet. A whole lot of people who don't have a clue what they are talking about were given a voice, which led to more people not knowing anything about what they are listening to believing the words of the first group.

[budwom]

With all due respect, tell that to our Canadian friends who own property in the States, pay taxes, and are denied entry into the US at the border due to Covid restrictions.

well, until a few weeks ago, they were doing the very same thing to Americans who own property there, pay taxes, etc.