What I've been saying: Covid-19 much more dangerous than initial death toll suggests

OK, so, people keep saying, it's just 1% or 2% of people who die of Covid-19, right? I've been saying for months, there are also severe health consequences for survivors, even for the previously healthy and young types.

Now, look at this:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/almost-third-recovered-covid-patients-180255388.html

"Out of 47,780 people who were discharged from hospital in the first wave, 29.4 per cent were readmitted to hospital within 140 days, and 12.3 per cent of the total died."

So, heart and liver disease and new-onset diabetes have been associated with the post-viral syndrome caused by the SARS-CoV-2, due to how it damages several organs even in mild infections.

 

Oh boy, some more government fear-mongering! Long live Fauci & Friends and their false narrative!

 

other corona viruses also have post-viral effects. Viruses do that. You can't shut the world. We need to live with covid much like we learn to live with liberal politicians

 

Not as frequently as the SARS-CoV-2 is doing. My only point: it needs to be taken seriously, and people shouldn't reject control measures such as epidemiological controls and vaccines.

 

CF

It is fascinating how consistently your posts follow the narrative advanced by Fauci & Big Pharma.

 

I'm with you on vaccines, but the 2-dose solution is a logistical nightmare. I'm also in full support of once vaccinated, you no longer need be forced to mask up. If you want to encourage people to get vaccinated, then stop the demands for the wearing of the useless masks

 

95% protection is a bit theoretical. Older people get some 86%. But yes, I agree that it is easier to market the vaccines than the masks; for some reason (well, I do know the reason but I don't feel like going there, right now) masks became such a politicized issue! Masks are not useless when they are the right kind and properly worn. I just read a piece about how incredible it is that other countries like Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan launched immediately into production of high quality masks (in the case of Taiwan, 6-ply ones!) and distributed them to the population, while here what was supposed to be a stop-gap measure, the mostly useless cloth masks, remain what is worn by most people (and we're the #1 economy in the world - if other countries were able to do it, we should have been able to do it too). Taiwan: death toll proportionally thousands smaller than ours. Our death toll per million of the population: 1,229. Theirs: 0.3. Their outstanding masks + the entire population massively adhering to them, have something to do with this outstanding result.

Yes, the two doses are a pain. Let's hope that the Johnson and Johnson one, which is about to release their phase 3 trial, gets good data and is swiftly approved, because they are a one-dose vaccine. About being "forced" to mask up, I never endorsed mandatory use. I think it's totally useless. People get resentful and make a point of defeating it. Mask use should have been optional from the beginning and never mandatory, but coupled with a strong educational campaign + the use of the Defense Production Act to make efficient masks rather than the dreadful cloth masks.

 

Of course C19 should be taken seriously and it’s important to remind people of that. But I don’t think re-admission rates for C19 are out of line compared to say influenza. Here’s one retrospective analysis on Influenza re-admission.

https://www.infectiousdiseaseadviso...ion-for-the-flu-often-need-readmission-later/

 

How many died?

 

I don’t know. Still looking into that. When we are dealing with pre existing conditions at high rates in all respiratory hospitalizations, post discharge mortality shouldn’t be surprising in either case.

 

Here’s one source that shows 50% of individuals hospitalized for influenza who die do so after discharge.

https://idsa.confex.com/idsa/2017/webprogram/Paper63384.html

 

There is no freaking way that the case-fatality rate for influenza gets to be as high as 1 in 8 cases (12.3%) even for hospitalized patients. No freaking way. The mortality from influenza is about 0.1% overall. The ICU rate for influenza is 1%. And even if the mortality for influenza considering hospitalized patients only, gets to be high depending on what you find, you also need to understand that the percentage of influenza patients who need hospitalization is much smaller that the percentage of Covid-19 patients who need the same (20%). So even if the proportions were similar, the numbers for Covid-19 are much bigger.

I stand by what I said. This is much more dangerous than influenza and the sequelae are much more common.

I mean, we're at 10 months and we have 400,000 dead, and this doesn't even count the ones I've posted the OP about (the way we're doing it, these wouldn't count as Covid-19 deaths). When we get to 12 months we'll have AT LEAST 500,000 deaths.

Only the 1918-9 Spanish Flu had similar numbers... in a time when sanitation was lower, hospitals were precarious, no ventilators existed, no antibiotics to treat secondary infections, etc.

ANY OTHER YEAR influenza had a much smaller mortality. The average is 20K over the last 31 influenza seasons or something like this (I'm quoting from memory). Also when the CDC looked at averages for the last 31 influenza seasons they found that at peak influenza in the worst years was killing 64 people per day. Compare to 4,000 per day we're seeing routinely with Covid-19.

There aren't too many things that are more obvious than the FACT that Covid-19 is much more dangerous than the flu and kills many more people.

 

I don’t think that was the conclusion of the study at all. I don’t have any numbers on what percentage of hospitalized discharged influenza patients die, just that half of deaths occur after discharge. The link I provided also indicates deaths after discharge are less likely to be attributed to influenza than deaths occurring in the hospital, skewing the mortality rate of influenza lower. Of course I’ve presented solid evidence in the past the CFR of influenza is much higher than 0.1%.

And there is no way the case fatality rate for C19 is 12.3% either.

 

@557 See this, from the CDC:

"The CDC estimates that the burden of illness during the 2018–2019 season included an estimated 35.5 million people getting sick with influenza, 16.5 million people going to a health care provider for their illness, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths from influenza."

So what do we have here? Percentage of hospitalization for influenza, that's 1.4%. Compare that to 20% for Covid-19. Percentage of death among hospitalized patients for influenza, 6.97%. So, that's 6.97% of only 1.4% of people. The overall mortality for that season was 0.09%.

QED

 

Re-read what I posted. First I was talking about the data from my own OP, not about your study. I never said the CFR for C19 is 12.3%. I just said that people who survived a hospitalized case of Covid-19 still die later, 12.3%. Now look again at what I said (I edited the post that you quoted, 4 minutes before you quoted the previous and much smaller post; look at the time stamps) and look at post #14.

 

@557 There is also an interesting observation to make: how much more resilient and more infectious the SARS-CoV-2 is, compared to the influenza virus. What happened to the flu this year? It is almost unheard of. We're getting a few thousand cases nationwide, not dozens of millions. Why? Because of social distancing and masks. The flu is so easy to defeat with these epidemiological measures, that the moment we get some 60% of the population wearing masks and keeping a reasonable distance from others, the flu almost disappears... while Covid-19 continues to rage and to spread like wild fire.

 

I didn’t go back and look for an edit so missed most of that post.

To be clear, I’ve never claimed C19 today isn’t more deadly than influenza today. That’s not my point. My point is that re-admission rates are almost identical for influenza and C19. I don’t see any value in pretending re-admission rates of C19 are special or out of line in the context of respiratory disease. If the point is just to compare CFR or IFR of C19 and Influenza, why does Yahoo harp on re-admission rates? I know these false premises by media shouldn’t bother me anymore but they do.

If you don’t remember, I can resupply links showing the CDC data on CFR and IFR of influenza are grossly inaccurate. But it’s not particularly relevant because even using accurate data on influenza, C19 still has an IFR at least twice that of influenza (at present). As I said in my first reply, it’s important to emphasize that. My problem is with reporting re-admissions for C19 as if it’s something new or unique to C19. It’s par for the course.

I would like to know what the mortality rate of discharged influenza patients is. I can’t make a claim on that because I don’t know of any data. Covid has certainly taught me how misunderstood influenza is.

 

@577 Look at this: the mortality among hospitalized patients with Covid-19 in March was 11.4%. Now it is 5% thanks to therapeutic advancements. Let's even just consider the low rate.
So, if 5% of Covid-19 hospitalized patients die, and another 12.3% of the ones who are discharged die later of Covid-19 consequences, what do we have?

20% of confirmed Covid-19 patients need hospitalization. 5% of these die (that is, 1 out of 20 hospitalized cases; and since hospitalized cases are 20 out of 100 of all cases, then, this is 1 out of 100 of the grand total of all cases), so 95% of these survive (or 19 out 100). But of these 19%, 12.3% die later. The 12.3% of these 95% of hospitalization survivors, who die later (or 1 in 8.13) when applied to the 19 out of 100 patients who have initially survived a hospitalization, add 2.33% to the grand total for 100 patients of all kinds.

So we're dealing with a CFR that is actually 3.33% (1% die right away; 2.33% die later). Again, these numbers are several times higher than the numbers for the flu.

 

It's not false premise by the media. It comes from research by Leicester University and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) of the United Kingdom. These are serious people. Don't shoot the messenger. Yahoo merely reported what The Telegraph reported, which came from Leicester University.

As I showed clearly in post #18, these readmissions and subsequent deaths caused directly by tardive complications of Covid-19 add 2.33% to the CFR, bumping it to 3.33% rather than 1%. That is very significant, and that's what the article says (I mean, if someone takes the time of making the calculations like I did in post #18 ).

In a disease as prevalent and as infectious as Covid-19 which is contaminating so many million Americans, a bump from 1% of CFR to 3.33% is very significant. It is more than 3 times higher.

 

Of course SARS-CoV-2 is more infectious. Masks and social distancing are part of it. There is quite a bit of evidence the old theory of viral competition for resources isn’t out of play in limiting influenza cases either. There are a lot of other factors as well, addressed here...
http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?posts/1072361417/

 

Your math is good on Covid mortality. But the premise re-admission rates with Covid are unique is false. As are the CDC numbers on influenza mortality. Clearly C19 is serious enough we don’t have to make things up to make the point it is serious. That’s my point, one I’ve made repeatedly in these discussions.

As I mentioned to another member tonight, if the facts on C19 aren’t enough motivation to get people to actually take mitigation seriously, nothing will. When I see media report things like this bit on re-admissions and then print articles on how to be safe from Covid on your vacation I just shake my head.

 

This speculation doesn't account for the fact that flu tests are NOT coming up positive for influenza. And no, we actually aren't seeing much of the twindemic we were afraid of. People are being tested - at least in our hospital - with a kit that provides simultaneously flu, Covid-19, and RSV. What are we seeing? Patients being positive for Covid-19 only. Influenza, nowhere to be seen. That is NOT due to all the other factors you're talking about, and it's not a missed case of simultaneous influenza being counted as a Covid-19 death and being masked by Covid-19, because in that case, the test would also come back positive for influenza and the death certificate would have influenza as co-morbidity. And the death certificate would be correct, like I've explained many times. Most likely that patient wouldn't have died of influenza only... but died of Covid-19, made worse by influenza.

 

I haven’t seen any good evidence the demographic in your study that dies after Covid hospitalization isn’t predisposed to death without the correlation of Covid hospitalization. It would be interesting to know how a control would affect conclusions drawn.

 

I’m glad you addressed the tests for c19 and influenza. They’ve been around for months but I can’t find any data on how prevalent their use has become.

I did specifically address the C19 positive results with negative influenza. Influenza in the general population is higher than in C19 positives. For some reason SARS-CoV-2 infection is “protecting” individuals from influenza infection. This definitely has an impact on CDC estimates.

Also, coinfections of influenza and C19 have a much higher mortality rate in many studies. So in those cases there are C19 deaths that would not have occurred without a co-infection. If the individual “most likely” wouldn’t have died of either infection alone, all such deaths can’t be attributed to C19. Especially when you figure influenza alone causes tens of thousands more cardiovascular deaths than are admitted to each year. If a coinfected individual dies of a heart attack or stroke in the hospital can you say for certain what caused the cardiovascular event? Maybe with an autopsy. Certainly not without one.

And incidentally one of the factors I talked about in the linked post was Covid mitigations.

 

No, like I said, these deaths are MUCH MORE FREQUENT. That's my point. Yes, post-viral syndromes exist; yes, the flu can also have tardive complications... but the INCIDENCE in the general population is much smaller! Again, look at what I said in post #14: "So what do we have here? Percentage of hospitalization for influenza, that's 1.4%. Compare that to 20% for Covid-19. Percentage of death among hospitalized patients for influenza, 6.97%. So, that's 6.97% of only 1.4% of people. The overall mortality for that season was 0.09%."

So, from 0.09% you aren’t getting to a final CFR of 3.33% for influenza, like these new data from England are showing for COVID-19. No freaking way, like I said. So, yes, influenza has complications too, but COVID-19 has them with a MUCH BIGGER incidence.

That’s what I said and I said nothing wrong and the article I quoted said nothing wrong either.

My Internet is down, I posted this from my cell phone, I hate the small keyboard so I’m going to bed, we’ll continue tomorrow. Good night.