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Coronavirus (COVID-19)


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1 minute ago, mission27 said:

I dont really understand why you believe this 

China and South Korea are the only countries who are at least temporarily at a point in the epidemic where their closed case statistics are somewhat relevant and both have fatality rates of 3-4% among close cases (IMO these will come down some as the remaining active cases are unlikely to result in many more fatalities, but still, I will admit the CFR based on official stats will not drop below 2 or 3% for a while, until we have more widespread testing or therapeutics)

Its all well and good to say we 'dont believe China' but in almost all respects the progression of their statistics has mirrored how this has played out in all the other hot spots and we dont see people in China going on social media and saying the CCP is hiding cases anymore, so what is there to not believe? 

South Korea is a liberal democracy, what is there to not believe? 

Do you or do you not agree this is SARS? Literally same DNA and molecular structure.

Did SARS or did SARS not have a 15% final official death rate?

South Korea is generally one of the healthiest countries in the world, by far. So I'm not surprised one bit if their official death rate ends up 3-4%. America and most countries are genrally unhealthy.

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Just now, pwny said:

I mean obesity alone isn’t a risk factor for anything. But obesity comes with other risk factors tied to the respiratory system that we classify as obesity-related illnesses. Given this attacks the respiratory system, it would be rather odd for obesity to not be a risk factor, given obesity related illnesses. 

wouldnt the more accurate claim be those with respiratory issues though, so why not just use that? As ive said, by bmi standards im obese and no one is considering me jacked. Im not a total outlier in that sense. I know literally fat people who have better cardio endurance than I do. Instead of using an ultra broad term where the defintion is great to start with, why not get more specific about who is at risk?

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1 minute ago, GSUeagles14 said:

wouldnt the more accurate claim be those with respiratory issues though, so why not just use that?

Not really. Many obese people don't realize they have respiratory issues because they don’t present in every day life. How do you express to those people that they’re at risk if you simply tell them that a risk factor is something they don’t know they have?

Plus it’s that obesity creates the factor that is at issue. Increased heart rate, decreased blood oxygen levels, lower heart health, etc. all tie back as symptoms that can present due to the person’s obesity. 

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5 minutes ago, pwny said:

Not really. Many obese people don't realize they have respiratory issues because they don’t present in every day life. How do you express to those people that they’re at risk if you simply tell them that a risk factor is something they don’t know they have?

Plus it’s that obesity creates the factor that is at issue. Increased heart rate, decreased blood oxygen levels, lower heart health, etc. all tie back as symptoms that can present due to the person’s obesity. 

but it would, because respiratory issues are the real problems. Not everyone whose obese has them. unless youre saying obese people without respiratory issues is the real red flag?

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9 minutes ago, BayRaider said:

Do you or do you not agree this is SARS? Literally same DNA and molecular structure.

Did SARS or did SARS not have a 15% final official death rate?

South Korea is generally one of the healthiest countries in the world, by far. So I'm not surprised one bit if their official death rate ends up 3-4%. America and most countries are genrally unhealthy.

SARS and COVID are not the same thing and SARS-CoV-1 is not the same as SARS-CoV-2.

 

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SARS did not become a pandemic precisely because the CFR was so high and the incubation period relatively short and because it was less transmissible than COVID 

If COVID had a CFR of 15%, it would be much less of a big deal, because it never would have infected this many people

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2 minutes ago, GSUeagles14 said:

but it would, because respiratory issues are the real problems. Not everyone whose obese has them. unless youre saying obese people without respiratory issues is the real red flag?

Not everyone who is old has the risk factors either. We still say that people who are old are at risk.

And yes, not everyone who is obese has them. But the overwhelming majority of people that do have them 1. are obese 2. don’t know they have them and 3. only have them because they are obese.

Obesity often presents with risk factors, many of which the person doesn’t know they have. Old age often presents with risk factors, many of which the person doesn’t know they have. Therefore, obesity and old age are both risk factors.

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1 minute ago, pwny said:

Not everyone who is old has the risk factors either. We still say that people who are old are at risk.

And yes, not everyone who is obese has them. But the overwhelming majority of people that do have them 1. are obese 2. don’t know they have them and 3. only have them because they are obese.

Obesity often presents with risk factors, many of which the person doesn’t know they have. Old age often presents with risk factors, many of which the person doesn’t know they have. Therefore, obesity and old age are both risk factors.

Idk I think age in and of itself is clearly a risk factor and by far the biggest.  Older people have weaker immune systems and it seems like a lot of them just can't fight this off. 

I havent seen all the cross tabs but my suspicion is that the vast majority of deaths from people with heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, etc. are old folks and the reason the fatality rates are so high (like 6% for people with diabetes or whatever) is more so that a lot of people with diabetes are old than that old people have diabetes.  I'd be curious to CFR for people under the age of 70 with diabetes, for example.  My guess is its still pretty low or we'd be seeing a hell of a lot more middle aged people dropping dead right now in NYC.

Underlying conditions clearly don't help and obesity leads to underlying conditions, but in this particular case I think age is by far and away the biggest factor.  

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Just now, mission27 said:

Idk I think age in and of itself is clearly a risk factor and by far the biggest.  Older people have weaker immune systems and it seems like a lot of them just can't fight this off. 

I mean that’s part what I meant old age presenting with symptoms; one of which being a weakened immune system, others being weakened heart health and other general health issues that make fighting off the virus harder.

But at the same time, my girlfriend’s dad who is a 72 year old recently retired primary care physician that runs 5 miles a day and is constantly monitoring his health probably had a much lower risk factor than my 50 year old mom who doesn’t take care of her health at all, and he certainly wouldn’t have the same risks that other 72 year olds do. It’s not just the age, but what the age causes in the majority of cases, just as with obesity.

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Just now, pwny said:

I mean that’s part what I meant old age presenting with symptoms; one of which being a weakened immune system, others being weakened heart health and other general health issues that make fighting off the virus harder.

But at the same time, my girlfriend’s dad who is a 72 year old recently retired primary care physician that runs 5 miles a day and is constantly monitoring his health probably had a much lower risk factor than my 50 year old mom who doesn’t take care of her health at all, and he certainly wouldn’t have the same risks that other 72 year olds do. It’s not just the age, but what the age causes in the majority of cases, just as with obesity.

Maybe true, although I think if he were 82 and still doing all those things, it would be a different story. 

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I guess my point is, old people almost invariably have weakened immune systems even if they dont have any 'underlying conditions' and that seems to be by far the biggest driver of variations in death rates between cohorts

Younger obese people may be at a higher risk for heart disease or diabetes, but even if these conditions might make you a little more susceptible to dying if you get a serious form of the illness, the chances of someone who is not 70+ getting a serious illness in the first place seems to be very very low, and anecdotally plenty of the young people who have been reported to have died of COVID have been in reasonable good health / shape

So while I'm generally all in favor of critiquing the obese for their unhealthy lifestyle I'm not sure its really a significant risk factor here the way age, or to a lesser extent a serious respiratory disease like COPD, might be

If you are old COVID is a new and real and very serious threat.  If you are not old, but obese, you should probably be a lot more concerned about having a heart attack or not being able to fit into an airline seat than about COVID.

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8 minutes ago, mission27 said:

Maybe true, although I think if he were 82 and still doing all those things, it would be a different story. 

Very likely. Just trying to explain to why we refer to it by the general risk factor of obesity/old age rather than *only saying* “those with respiratory issues” or “those with decreased immune responses”. It’s much more effective for those who likely have those issues to just be told the risk factor is the general risk factor they know they present rather than the specific one they may not know they present.

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