
99% of Those Who Died from Virus Had Other Illness, Italy Says - kasperni
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says
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gentleman11
“Other illness” is extremely vague. Apparently having had a high blood
pressure reading counts. What about sore knees? Migraines?

Edit: if you scroll down, you find info that is actually meaningful: a chart
showing deaths by age. What this shows is that 90+% of people over 60 have had
a doctors visit that turned up an issue.

~~~
mardifoufs
It says in the article:

"More than 75% had high blood pressure, about 35% had diabetes and a third
suffered from heart disease"

Which makes sense considering most of them were older people

~~~
Lldjjxnn
Heart disease is undiagnosed diabetes

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZoQiDaWnuE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZoQiDaWnuE)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
That seems highly improbable to me. Can you give some data to back your
assertion?

[Edit: I see you added a Youtube video, with no further information. No, I'm
not going to go watch a no-further-information-given Youtube video to find out
if your claim has a scientific basis, or if you're a quack. If it's real, it
ought to be in text somewhere, with data.]

~~~
Lldjjxnn
Diabetes mellitus is highly prevalent amongst patients with heart failure,
especially those with heart failure and preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF),
and patients with the two conditions have a higher risk of mortality compared
with patients without diabetes or heart failure.[1–3] Diabetic patients have
an increased risk of developing heart failure because of the abnormal cardiac
handling of glucose and free fatty acids (FFAs), and because of the effect of
the metabolic derangements of diabetes on the cardiovascular system.

A wealth of epidemiological evidence demonstrates that diabetes mellitus is
independently associated with the risk of developing heart failure, with the
risk increasing by more than twofold in men and by more than fivefold in
women.[1–3,6]

Both population studies and clinical trials have demonstrated that diabetes
mellitus significantly increases the risk of recurrent hospitalisations for
heart failure and the duration of hospital stay in patients with heart
failure, and it is associated with a significantly higher mortality compared
with those without diabetes.[11]

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5494155/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5494155/)

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in women. Both
obesity and diabetes mellitus are important independent risk factors for the
development of cardiovascular disease. Obesity is the leading risk factor for
type 2 diabetes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that
32% of white and 53% of black women are obese.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3066828/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3066828/)

~~~
lioeters
> diabetes mellitus significantly increases the risk of recurrent
> hospitalisations for heart failure

I hadn't heard this - good to know!

However, the studies you cited do not seem to support your earlier statement:

> Heart disease is undiagnosed diabetes

Perhaps a qualification would fit better: deaths from heart disease may have
been caused by undiagnosed diabetes.

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stephsmithio
I think headlines like these are extremely detrimental to the global fight of
this virus.

Whether or not you're at risk (age, health problems, etc), you are a vehicle
for transporting the virus and so while there is no need for "panic", it's
both respectful and pragmatic to distance so that the virus can be contained.

~~~
garraeth
Why? Shouldn't the truth be known? Wouldn't it be wise to know actual stats
vs/ trying to hide the truth in order to propagate undue panic? Then discuss
it, and options, as how to move forward with correct information vs/ guesses
and/or rumors?

It's sad that this report was downvoted on a site (HN) that is supposed to be
so analytical.

~~~
cameronfraser
In a perfect world where everyone reacts rationally sure. However, the actual
reaction to this information is that individuals deem themselves not a risk
and go about their daily lives. Unfortunately they are endangering everyone
who is at risk in the process.

~~~
ardy42
Yeah, there's _so_ much complexity here that a simple number could lead
someone to miss.

So, 99% of those who died had another illness. Almost everyone has illnesses,
so what kinds are we talking about?

A patient surviving doesn't mean the patient didn't need intensive medical
care.

So you survived, are there any long-term symptoms you'll have to learn to live
with?

I've also heard that (at least in some contexts) a "mild" case of COVID-19 is
defined as _one that didn 't need breathing assistance._ That's not the
colloquial definition of "mild."

------
lazybreather
About 90% of the general population have "other" illnesses.

~~~
toomuchtodo
A third of the US population suffers from high blood pressure [1]. More than
100 million U.S. adults are now living with diabetes or prediabetes [2]. About
15 million Americans have cancer of some sort [3]. About 10 million people are
immunocompromised or immunosuppressed [4]. So, you're not wrong! The high risk
factor cohort is enormous, and the more risk factors you have, the higher your
risk of death is (based on data coming out of Italy). A lot of folks are going
to die from ailments they had and knew about, or ailments they had but didn't
know about.

[1]
[https://www.cdc.gov/bloodpressure/facts.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/bloodpressure/facts.htm)

[2] [https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p0718-diabetes-
repor...](https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p0718-diabetes-report.html)

[3]
[https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/all.html](https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/all.html)

[4]
[https://www.google.com/search?q=americans+immunocompromised](https://www.google.com/search?q=americans+immunocompromised)

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heisenbit
Most people dying from AIDS die from other illnesses. If something new pulls
the bodily systems down across the board by viral replication, dying cells and
lack of oxygen there will always be a place that is a weak spot which gives.

~~~
guenthert
With AIDS attacking the immune system, this is an patently bad example.

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fenesiistvan
Multiple reports now mention this "high blood pressure" criteria. What this
means more exactly? Elevated (above 120/80) also counts as high?

~~~
beagle3
I haven’t been able to find a good description, but I suspect it means there
is a known history of high bp (which indeed is usually defined as you wrote)

However, there is confounding issue of bp medicine - there was a lancer
article about ibuprofen and some kinds of bp medicine causing increased ACE2
expression, which is suspected to increase susceptibility to sarscov2 and
worsen covid symptoms.

So, it could be that the blood pressure isn’t actually the risk factor, but
treatments for it. Will take time to tell

~~~
arpa
The official position of the european cardiology association is that claims
that BP medicine can increase suceptibility and worsen symptoms is basically
FUD: [https://www.escardio.org/Councils/Council-on-
Hypertension-(C...](https://www.escardio.org/Councils/Council-on-
Hypertension-\(CHT\)/News/position-statement-of-the-esc-council-on-
hypertension-on-ace-inhibitors-and-ang)

It is strongly suggested to keep taking your BP medication.

A bonus also lies in that link: there is evidence from studies in animals
suggesting that these medications might be rather protective against serious
lung complications in patients with COVID-19 infection, but to date there is
no data in humans.

The mechanism of protective action is explained by this comment on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22505537](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22505537)

While the theory of ACE inhibitors/blockers making covid-19 worse is basically
based upon the presumption that due to inhibition/blocking of angiotensin
receptors, the body upregulates by creating more ACE receptors, to which the
virus can bind.

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jonrimmer
This doesn't mean that many of those who were younger and without pre-existing
illnesses weren't in a serious condition and in danger of dying, just that,
with the help of intensive care, they were able to survive.

If and when heath services become completely overwhelmed and there are no
longer enough hospital bed/ventilators/doctors and nurses to provide the
assistance they need, then we'll likely see a lot of younger and otherwise
healthy people start to die as well.

~~~
DeonPenny
It's that the opposite of what they are saying. In a situation where you just
described when the system in italy was very openly overwhelmed young people
not only didn't die there's very little evidence they got sick, to begin with

~~~
Teever
Was this due to triage where resources were focused on younger people with
complications as the medical professionals felt that it was a better use of
limited resources?

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rayvd
Same as with influenza.

