A new study by a medical journal revealed that most of the people in New York City who were hospitalized due to coronavirus had one or more underlying health issues.

Health records from 5,700 patients hospitalized within the Northwell Health system -- which housed the most patients in the country throughout the pandemic -- showed that 94 percent of patients had more than one disease other than COVID-19, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

https://www.foxnews.com/health/nearly-all-ny-coronavirus-patients-suffered-underlying-health-issue-study-finds

Very interesting and important to know.

I think the cold hard reality is that this disease is relatively harmless for healthy people under 65.

This isn't really surprising or new info. Half the population of American has some sort of chronic disease. We also know this disease hits the elderly even harder and what percentage of them have underlying conditions?

Does this fox article link to the study? I couldn't find it.

Joe Exotic said:

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I think the cold hard reality is that this disease is relatively harmless for healthy people under 65.

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How is the cure working out for them, Joe?

Joe Exotic said:

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I think the cold hard reality is that this disease is relatively harmless for healthy people under 65.

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I'll be sure to tell that to my friend whose healthy, marathon running, 29 year old nurse daughter died of it. I am sure she will feel better knowing it's just bad luck.

Joe Exotic said:

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I think the cold hard reality is that this disease is relatively harmless for healthy people under 65.

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What percentage of the American population under 65 is considered "healthy"? When you say harmless, do we know the extent of potential long term issues caused by the virus at this time...for both healthy and unhealthy?

bay fan said:

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Joe Exotic said:

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I think the cold hard reality is that this disease is relatively harmless for healthy people under 65.

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I'll be sure to tell that to my friend whose healthy, marathon running, 29 year old nurse daughter died of it. I am sure she will feel better knowing it's just bad luck.

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And this right here is where the conversation always has to end. No matter how rare of an occurrence, ignore the big picture and shut it all down until a 100% guaranteed, proven vaccine comes out.

Close to half the population has at least one chronic disease. I don't know if that's counting obesity. Another 99 million are overweight. I know it's easy to point to the fact coronavirus affects people with chronic conditions but the fact is that most of the population has one.

bay fan said:

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Joe Exotic said:

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I think the cold hard reality is that this disease is relatively harmless for healthy people under 65.

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I'll be sure to tell that to my friend whose healthy, marathon running, 29 year old nurse daughter died of it. I am sure she will feel better knowing it's just bad luck.

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healthy marathon runners also in rare occasions die of heart attacks. it doesn't change the big picture.

Yeah, not trying to be rude, but we can't use rare exceptions to the general rule when making the decisions that affect millions.

AggieAuditor said:

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bay fan said:

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Joe Exotic said:

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I think the cold hard reality is that this disease is relatively harmless for healthy people under 65.

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I'll be sure to tell that to my friend whose healthy, marathon running, 29 year old nurse daughter died of it. I am sure she will feel better knowing it's just bad luck.

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And this right here is where the conversation always has to end. No matter how rare of an occurrence, ignore the big picture and shut it all down until a 100% guaranteed, proven vaccine comes out.

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This type of emotional anecdote is driving policy and is the reason this issue is inherently political. The death of a healthy young person is tragic, and they will happen with this virus too, but they are vanishingly rare. 7/864 people in Georgia that died were under 45 without a confirmed underlying condition, and 4 or 5 of those were listed as "unknown".

https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report

Aggie1946 said:

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Close to half the population has at least one chronic disease. I don't know if that's counting obesity. Another 99 million are overweight. I know it's easy to point to the fact coronavirus affects people with chronic conditions but the fact is that most of the population has one.

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The above point has to be emphasized. A good chunk of the population has a comorbidity, many of whom may not even realize it.

On top of that, among the infected that don't die from it, there are a lot of nasty impacts, some of which may be permanent (lung damage, kidney damage, etc.). This attitude that it only impacts people that are really unhealthy to begin with is nonsense.

More than half of the adults in this country have at least one comorbidity. 40% of this country is obese alone.

JesusQuintana said:

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hypeiv said:

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Good to see both sides are using anecdotal evidence to make their points...

Patient given random supplement and they get better... it's the cure for all!

Otherwise healthy person under 30 dies... We are all gonna die!

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Of course, we operate in extremes now. Gov says we are going to start opening up in a controlled manner so side A says thats not good enough dadgummit...open it all now I want to go to Disney World. Side B says Nooooo we are all gonna die close it down for ever. Can we just not sit back and let leadership and the experts carve out a path for us?

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You had me up until this part. Those leaders scare the heck out of me, for both sides.

Far too often, the middle is the correct answer and people can't let their own political viewpoints get out of the way to make that happen. Opening things back up but with some restrictions to slow this thing down and keep it under the curve, but stop giving people no choice as to whether they can keep their job/business or not.

Tbs2003 said:

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Aggie1946 said:

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Close to half the population has at least one chronic disease. I don't know if that's counting obesity. Another 99 million are overweight. I know it's easy to point to the fact coronavirus affects people with chronic conditions but the fact is that most of the population has one.

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The above point has to be emphasized. A good chunk of the population has a comorbidity, many of whom may not even realize it.

On top of that, among the infected that don't die from it, there are a lot of nasty impacts, some of which may be permanent (lung damage, kidney damage, etc.). This attitude that it only impacts people that are really unhealthy to begin with is nonsense.

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The fact that it impacts the relatively healthy as well does not negate the view that it disproportionately and most severely impacts the old and unhealthy.

"How much" is a relevant question, and certainly not nonsense.

bay fan said:

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Joe Exotic said:

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I think the cold hard reality is that this disease is relatively harmless for healthy people under 65.

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I'll be sure to tell that to my friend whose healthy, marathon running, 29 year old nurse daughter died of it. I am sure she will feel better knowing it's just bad luck.

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Not to put too fine a point on it, but chronic cardio is a real thing. People drop dead of heart attacks as marathon runners because they abuse their circulatory system so much, plus chronic cardio does reduce your immunity.

The problem is that people want to make a big deal out of this when we bring up COVID-19 deaths but ignore the fact that the flu numbers often quoted refer to "flu and flu related deaths". And I'd wager we'd find lots of similar things if we looked at heart disease, cancer, etc.

If this were some outlier related to how we count COVID-19 deaths then it would very fairly be something to scrutinize, but from everything that I understand it's not.

Carolin_Gallego said:

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Nearly half of all Americans suffer from at least one chronic disease.

What percentage of the population has one or more disease at any given moment? My bet would be 99.9%.

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Link please to your/any basis for the 99.9%? Get this type of personal opinion driven fear mongering out of here.

I'd like to know the severity of these underlying conditions of those that had passed away from COVID-19. That would be the important stat.

I'm asthmatic, but haven't been to the Dr for asthma in 17-18 years, don't take a daily inhaler, and it barely affects me. There are asthmatics that get pneumonia/bronchitis often, have been hospitalized recently, and have to take a daily inhaler just to function normally.

Obesity can be BMI of 25.0. Which quite frankly, means a 5-10 male weighing 210 pounds is obese. There are plenty of them. But morbid obesity might mean that 5-10 male weighing 270. There's a big difference between those two people and their likely cardiovascular health.

Same with blood pressure. Are we talking 125 over 85? Or 150 over 95? Both could be considered underlying conditions.

So again, I'm interested in the severity of these to determine what the risk is for each category/person, not just a slight underlying conditions which likely over half of Americans have.

99.9% is not realism. It's a complete guess that is likely way off.

Carolin_Gallego said:

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brownbrick said:

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Carolin_Gallego said:

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Nearly half of all Americans suffer from at least one chronic disease.

What percentage of the population has one or more disease at any given moment? My bet would be 99.9%.

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Link please to your/any basis for the 99.9%? Get this type of personal opinion driven fear mongering out of here.

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Realism is fear mongering? Please. We all have a little rust. I suggest using the ignore feature if you want to insulate yourself.

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If it's real provide some/any evidence. My calling out your unqualified opinion isn't "insulating myself." You just might be projecting there.

under 65 it would still be ranked as #10 leading cause of death when compared to annual totals for the last 10 years. and that's with less than 3 months since the first confirmed death in our country.

bay fan said:

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Joe Exotic said:

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I think the cold hard reality is that this disease is relatively harmless for healthy people under 65.

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I'll be sure to tell that to my friend whose healthy, marathon running, 29 year old nurse daughter died of it. I am sure she will feel better knowing it's just bad luck.

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She is an outlier. Sucks for her, but you don't base designs or policy on outliers.

beerad12man said:

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I'd like to know the severity of these underlying conditions of those that had passed away from COVID-19. That would be the important stat.

I'm asthmatic, but haven't been to the Dr for asthma in 17-18 years, don't take a daily inhaler, and it barely affects me. There are asthmatics that get pneumonia/bronchitis often, have been hospitalized recently, and have to take a daily inhaler just to function normally.

Obesity can be BMI of 25.0. Which quite frankly, means a 5-10 male weighing 210 pounds is obese. There are plenty of them. But morbid obesity might mean that 5-10 male weighing 270. There's a big difference between those two people and their likely cardiovascular health.

Same with blood pressure. Are we talking 125 over 85? Or 150 over 95? Both could be considered underlying conditions.

So again, I'm interested in the severity of these to determine what the risk is for each category/person, not just a slight underlying conditions which likely over half of Americans have.

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I am a perfect example of this. To your typical layman, I would be viewed as a "healthy active middle aged man" I don't have any limitations on mobility. I am active and walk a few miles every day. I am not visually fat. I don't take any medications to manage any chronic health conditions.

But if I died of covid-19, one side would say "it killed a healthy guy"

The other side would say "meh, he was older than 45, had boarder line stage 1 hypertension, had an overweight BMI, was a former smoker and cancer survivor."

You can find this all on CDC's website.

Here is how the White House defines Vunerable Individuals, who should stay home until Phase 3:

Quote:

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1. Elderly individuals.

2. Individuals with serious underlying health conditions, including high blood pressure, chronic lung disease, diabetes, obesity, asthma, and those whose immune system is compromised such as by chemotherapy for cancer and other conditions requiring such therapy.

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• Elderly (>65) - 16%
• High blood pressure - "Percent of adults aged 20 and over with hypertension (measured high blood pressure and/or taking antihypertensive medication): 33.2% (2015-2016)"
• Chronic Lung Disease - "Almost 15.7 million Americans (6.4%) reported that they have been diagnosed with COPD. More than 50% of adults with low pulmonary function were not aware that they had COPD, so the actual number may be higher. "
• Diabetes - "Percent with diabetes (physician-diagnosed or undiagnosed): 15%"
• Obesity - "Percent of adults aged 20 and over with obesity: 39.8% Percent of adults aged 20 and over with overweight, including obesity: 71.6%"
• Asthma - 7.7% of adults
• Immune System Compromised such as by chemotherapy for cancer... - I couldn't find such a stat but "Percent of adults who have ever been diagnosed with cancer: 9.4%"

You take all that together, a large percentage of us are sick in one way or another in this country. This page from the CDC shows 60% of all adults have at least one chronic disease, 40% have at least 2.

https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/infographic/chronic-diseases.htm