Do you have risk factors for Covid-19?

[wenchsenior]

I find it interesting how many people keep saying that it's inevitable that we will all be infected eventually. 

Are there actual statistics to back this up?  Or are people just telling themselves this to try to mentally prepare themselves for (in some cases) almost inevitable early death?  I have no question that several of my friends and family members have conditions where this virus is almost certain to kill them if they 'inevitably' get it.  If I truly believed that their infection was inevitable, I would be completely devastated.  If I believed this, I would essentially have to view all of these people as having the equivalent of a terminal illness (and possibly myself as well) that is going to kill them in the next couple months or years.

Is this what people truly believe when they say 'it's inevitable we are going to be infected'? 

I mean, I have been somewhat confident that I can in fact avoid getting this disease with proper steps taken.  If the massive number of selfish assholes who live in my city would just take some basic precautions, I'd be REALLY confident I could avoid getting it.

Am I just fooling myself? 

[Cassie]

Wench, I try not to think about if everyone will get it or not. 

[bogart]

I have no risk factors

Hope I'm not jinxing myself.

Well, per your profile, you're male, which depending on where in the world you live puts your risk at 1.5 to 2 times higher if you're more than 20 years old -- https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.17.20097410v1.full.pdf . 

[Hula Hoop]

Wench, I try not to think about if everyone will get it or not.

Same here.  I have a feeling that Covid could be really bad for me as I have had heart reconstructive surgery, a history of stroke and a bunch of other health issues.  Luckily, I don't live in the US so people are taking the virus very seriously here and not acting irresponsibly.

[PDXTabs]

I find it interesting how many people keep saying that it's inevitable that we will all be infected eventually. 

Because that was the message from the leaders at the beginning of the crisis. The goal was to "flatten the curve" but not to reduce the area under the curve. Estimates for worst case were 70-80% of the population eventually getting it. Since then it has become obvious that some countries (New Zealand, Australia, Scotland, etc) are actually reducing the area under the curve. This combined with the knowledge that we have no idea how long it will take to develop a human vaccine for a Coronavirus (we've never got one through human trials - ever). As a point of reference it took 75 years to get a lousy vaccine to Dengue Fever that they only give you if you have already had the disease once.

[partgypsy]

For those who don't want to wear masks because they only help other people, (besides, dudes!) here are ways to make your mask actually provide more protection for yourself. One is to wear it properly, in places where people are unable to socially distance. Have multiple layers. For example my favorite has 2 layers and a pocket. I cut up the blue shop cloth rag to add as additional layer say if going to the groc store. Not 100% but might give people a motivation to wear them.

[Frugal Lizard]

I consider myself at a higher risk because I seem to be prone to developing pneumonia as a secondary infection.  Have had pneumonia 4 times now.  It seems that my immune system goes nuts when I have a cold or flu and then bam - lungs are full and I am having trouble breathing.  I do not want to find out if Covid has the same effect.

[js82]

I'm low-risk (30's, no health conditions), but I can't say the same for my parents and some of my coworkers.

Thus, I try to be as careful as is reasonable, for their sakes.

[LateToTheParty]

I have several autoimmune conditions, and take a buffet of immune-suppressing medications. Also work as a front-line healthcare worker in a hospital.

At least I have female gender and O blood type going for me. And plaquenil, for what it’s worth.

[Rosy]

For those who don't want to wear masks because they only help other people, (besides, dudes!) here are ways to make your mask actually provide more protection for yourself. One is to wear it properly, in places where people are unable to socially distance. Have multiple layers. For example my favorite has 2 layers and a pocket. I cut up the blue shop cloth rag to add as additional layer say if going to the groc store. Not 100% but might give people a motivation to wear them.

You know the 3M scientist who developed the 3M medical grade materials for the gold standard of PPE said that what you described has been tested as being 98% effective.
Something about that shop rag material - even just worn in a double fold by itself (without a cloth mask) is highly effective protection incl for the wearer.

I've been staying in and wearing a disposable mask on the rare occasions that I ventured out. With our cases going up, I ordered some re-usable masks online so I can insert the shop rag. I plan to triple fold it like a second mask inside.

In their experiment, a triple layer of the shop towel made it hard to breathe and did not improve protection.
 

[MayDay]

I am low risk but my husband has heart disease and is at high risk of complications because of that.

We are being very cautious. My workplace requires face coverings for all employees (although we aren't so great at staying 6' apart) and we have some N95's that we wear when shopping/etc, until they eventually fall apart.

[dblaace]

Cardiovascular Disease
Hypertension
Immune suppressed
Over 50
In Texas!

Not looking forward to it.

Interesting medical condition chart here. https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/COVIDNet/COVID19_5.html

[GillyMack]

@dblaace , those are cool stats.  Thanks for posting.  I was struck in the change over time in the proportions of hospitalizations of different age groups. From mid April to late June, the 18-49 year old group has gone from 23% to 40% of hospitalizations.  The matching loss in proportion came mostly from the 65+ group which moved from 40% to 28%.  The 50 to 64 year old group stayed at 29%.

Have all the old folks taken to doing a good job at hiding?

Keeping in mind that these are incomplete stats according to the disclaimer and the most recent few weeks will be revised (further upwards, naturally) as the data flows in, it’s very interesting.  Also, virtually every one hospitalized (circa 90%) have some sort of underlying condition.  Course it’s hard to get to middle age and not have something going on like hypertension. Correlation? Causation?

[RetiredAt63]

@dblaace , those are cool stats.  Thanks for posting.  I was struck in the change over time in the proportions of hospitalizations of different age groups. From mid April to late June, the 18-49 year old group has gone from 23% to 40% of hospitalizations.  The matching loss in proportion came mostly from the 65+ group which moved from 40% to 28%.  The 50 to 64 year old group stayed at 29%.

Have all the old folks taken to doing a good job at hiding?

Keeping in mind that these are incomplete stats according to the disclaimer and the most recent few weeks will be revised (further upwards, naturally) as the data flows in, it’s very interesting.  Also, virtually every one hospitalized (circa 90%) have some sort of underlying condition.  Course it’s hard to get to middle age and not have something going on like hypertension. Correlation? Causation?

We're in hiding. Doing our grocery shopping during the 7-8am priority hour.  Wearing masks, mostly.  And here at least, better precautions at seniors residences and nursing homes, finally.

[OtherJen]

@dblaace , those are cool stats.  Thanks for posting.  I was struck in the change over time in the proportions of hospitalizations of different age groups. From mid April to late June, the 18-49 year old group has gone from 23% to 40% of hospitalizations.  The matching loss in proportion came mostly from the 65+ group which moved from 40% to 28%.  The 50 to 64 year old group stayed at 29%.

Have all the old folks taken to doing a good job at hiding?

Keeping in mind that these are incomplete stats according to the disclaimer and the most recent few weeks will be revised (further upwards, naturally) as the data flows in, it’s very interesting.  Also, virtually every one hospitalized (circa 90%) have some sort of underlying condition.  Course it’s hard to get to middle age and not have something going on like hypertension. Correlation? Causation?

We're in hiding. Doing our grocery shopping during the 7-8am priority hour.  Wearing masks, mostly.  And here at least, better precautions at seniors residences and nursing homes, finally.

The nursing home where I volunteer has been on lockdown/essential staff only since mid-March. The retirement communities where several of my friends live and where another friend works have been under strict restrictions on movement and gathering within the complex since mid-March. They’ve eased up to allow some outdoor gatherings and dining now that the weather is warm, but no indoor communal dining or group meetings are happening.

[Rosy]

dblaace - thx for the stat.

Yup, you could say we are in hiding:).

[hops]

I'm on immunosuppressive drugs. My wife works in medicine. We've been in risk-minimization mode since January. Still landed in the hospital once with Crohn's complications, but fortunately that was during lockdown and the hospital was shockingly empty then. Recently we were thinking of venturing out a bit more to pick up some grocery indulgences we've not had for months, but with rising infection rates we're glad we didn't jump the gun on that.

What's been driving us crazy is the number of friends and relatives who are completely oblivious to their risk factors. The obese brother-in-law who doesn't see himself that way, or the older relatives with diabetes, hypertension, and heart conditions who still view themselves as healthy.

[js82]

Keeping in mind that these are incomplete stats according to the disclaimer and the most recent few weeks will be revised (further upwards, naturally) as the data flows in, it’s very interesting.  Also, virtually every one hospitalized (circa 90%) have some sort of underlying condition.  Course it’s hard to get to middle age and not have something going on like hypertension. Correlation? Causation?

I think it's a little bit of both.  Studies have show that certain risk factors (for example, Kidney disease) to be strongly positively correlated with Covid mortality, while others(Hypertension), not so much.  On the other hand, MANY of these factors strongly correlate with age, as does Covid death rate.

Per New York's official data, 90% of patients dying from Covid have at least one "comorbidity".  But these include things like Hyperlipidemia, hypertension, and dementia - all of these have a modest-at-best impact on risk from Covid, but are strongly correlated with age.  On the other hand there are things like diabetes and renal disease, which are much more strongly correlated to risk from Covid.

In general this is one of my pet peeves in discussions about comorbidities.  Some of the most common "comorbidities" are things that happen to be extremely common in older populations and don't have a huge impact on Covid risk.  Nuance in this discussion is critical, because a lot of the stats where someone quotes "90% of patients had at least one comorbidity" tend to neglect the fact that something like 65% of older Americans have clinical hypertension, but that hypertension isn't particularly strongly associated with increased risk of death from covid.

[Bloop Bloop]

It may be that many comorbidities have no particular causal interrelation with covid but correlate with some other factor (e.g. general poor health) that does have a causal relationship.

[RetiredAt63]

It may be that many comorbidities have no particular causal interrelation with covid but correlate with some other factor (e.g. general poor health) that does have a causal relationship.

The causal relationship is that older people have lived long enough to have accumulated health issues.   

[BECABECA]

It may be that many comorbidities have no particular causal interrelation with covid but correlate with some other factor (e.g. general poor health) that does have a causal relationship.

The causal relationship is that older people have lived long enough to have accumulated health issues.

The peer reviewed research contradicts your hypothesis:
Advanced age and an increasing number of comorbidities are independent predictors of in-hospital mortality for COVID-19 patients.

[AnnaGrowsAMustache]

Yes, in that I'm human and living in the middle of global pandemic with no known cure ...... ffs

[SAR]

Here's a covid risk calculator that expresses your chances of hospitalization and mortality based on a series of factors. Leave blank the one's you don't know.

I don't know the research source of the estimates (it comes from Sanford Health), but it was posted via the Medcram site on youtube, which is high quality.

It expresses the effect sizes in terms of your covid age, which is intuitive.

https://profile.covid-age.com/

[Bloop Bloop]

I tried that and got a hospitalisation risk of 2.7%

I didn't know a lot of it though (lipids, blood pressure etc)

[former player]

Yes, in that I'm human and living in the middle of global pandemic with no known cure ...... ffs

I thought NZ had eradicated it and then learnt its lessons about quarantine as well?  From that point of view you've currently got an effective risk of 0% and are safer than nearly everyone else on the planet.

[kei te pai]

Not quite 0% while idiots do a runner from quarantine to go to the supermarket and buy toothpaste. Before their covid test comes back positive.

[RetiredAt63]

It may be that many comorbidities have no particular causal interrelation with covid but correlate with some other factor (e.g. general poor health) that does have a causal relationship.

The causal relationship is that older people have lived long enough to have accumulated health issues.

The peer reviewed research contradicts your hypothesis:
Advanced age and an increasing number of comorbidities are independent predictors of in-hospital mortality for COVID-19 patients.

The abstract looks interesting but the information is in the M&M.  Things like, it mentions no correlation with previous meds use but why were the patients taking them? Plus it mentions specific comorbidities, I was referring to Bloop Bloop's general poor health comment. 

[AnnaGrowsAMustache]

Yes, in that I'm human and living in the middle of global pandemic with no known cure ...... ffs

I thought NZ had eradicated it and then learnt its lessons about quarantine as well?  From that point of view you've currently got an effective risk of 0% and are safer than nearly everyone else on the planet.

We have thousands of people in quarantine at the border, some of them are positive. Only takes one moron, and we seem to have a few of those. It will never be zero risk. One of the quarantine hotels is about 5 minutes walk from me......

[A mom]

I live with two people with risk factors. My only one is age. We now have a disabled relative living with us because we didn't think they were as safe in a group home, and also visiting them might put us at increased risk. But not sure we can keep this up for two years. I am tired!

[PDXTabs]

The causal relationship is that older people have lived long enough to have accumulated health issues.

That's not true at all. Older people with zero health issues do worse than young people.

[RetiredAt63]

The causal relationship is that older people have lived long enough to have accumulated health issues.

That's not true at all. Older people with zero health issues do worse than young people.

I just skimmed the paper.  They listed a bunch of physiological changes with aging that are not actually diseases, people are still healthy until they are challenged, but they are more vulnerable.  So in that sense yes, healthy older people are more vulnerable than healthy younger people, because deep down where you have to go look for signs, they are not as healthy.

Interesting that they mentioned vitamin D's role in the immune system.  Most people these days have low blood D because of winter and sunscreen and clothes.   And low vitamin D also increases with age, look at the increased incidence of osteopenia and osteoporosis with age.

[PDXTabs]

Interesting that they mentioned vitamin D's role in the immune system.  Most people these days have low blood D because of winter and sunscreen and clothes.   And low vitamin D also increases with age, look at the increased incidence of osteopenia and osteoporosis with age.

I'm totally with you on vitamin D. We still to this day don't really know why people get sick so much more frequently in the winter. Vitamin D is one of the prevailing theories.

[betsbillabong]

Sometimes there are societal factors. Like, I am in my mid-50s, so some degree of age risk. But I'm also a solo parent to a six year old and live 2000 miles away from my family. If I get hospitalized, it will be hard to find someone to watch over my (presumably COVID-positive) kiddo. So I am staying very safe.