
Evidence Suggests Those With Severe Covid-19 Have Same Pre-existing Ponditions - newsreview1
https://www.virology.ws/2020/05/07/the-perfect-storm/
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wahern
> The study revealed that the median age of the hospitalized patients was 63,
> and that 57% of these patients had hypertension, 34% had diabetes, and 42%
> were obese. Interestingly, the vast majority of the patients (88%) had two
> or more of these co-morbidities.

40% of Americans over age 20 ( _twenty_!) are obese. Source:
[https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-
overweight.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm)

45% of American adults have hypertension. Source:
[https://www.cdc.gov/bloodpressure/facts.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/bloodpressure/facts.htm)
For the 55+ age group I'd bet money, without Googling, it's ~57%.

Those aren't co-morbidities, they just reflect the population. The diabetes
prevalence seems maybe ~2x higher than would be expected, however, unless the
34% figure includes pre-diabetes and borderline cases. For age distributions
see
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3464829/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3464829/)

~~~
klmadfejno
You can't apply American averages to just New York City data. (or any specific
locale). Obesity rates are about half that in New York. I'd imagine similarly
different for all the other metrics.

~~~
wahern
Good point.

But for the age groups at issue the difference isn't half. For example, for
the age group 65-74 31% are obese. See
[https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/episrv/2019-ol...](https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/episrv/2019-older-
adult-health.pdf), p23. And if you adjust for race, poverty, etc, the gap
probably closes even more.

I'm simply taking issue with the characterization of these supposed co-
morbidities as representing "high risk" patients when in fact in the context
of Americans generally (and to a significant degree at-risk NYC population),
these conditions are typical, not atypical. I'm not sure what's to be gained,
either in terms of our understanding of pathogenesis or in treatment, by
distinguishing these conditions from a hypothetically healthier population. At
the very least, we should be careful about imbuing the confluence of these
conditions with too much meaning beyond the simple and obvious. Such
conditions are co-morbidities for most causes death across the spectrum of
illnesses, infections and otherwise.

~~~
klmadfejno
The median age of New Yorkers is around 36 vs. the median age of covid
patients of 63. That's a huge difference. The point you seemed to be making is
that the demographics of COVID deaths are close enough to the demographics of
the general population, implying that these demographics aren't indicative of
anything. That is not an accurate statement.

The usage seems fairly obvious to me. The risk to young health people is
somewhere in the range of 20-200x smaller than someone who is old and in poor
health. It's not a surprising claim, but it's clearly a useful thing to know
for medical planning. It's also useful at an individual level to get a sense
of their personal risk level. Finally, it is useful in understanding past
outcomes. If two different countries have different mortality rates, but also
different demographics, and both of them had similar mortality rates
normalized to those demographics... that's pretty useful to know.

------
Tagbert
Ponditions?

