
99% of those who died from virus had other illness, Italy says - Reedx
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/99-25-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says/ar-BB11mr4X
======
NotSammyHagar
This kind of idea is being abused to argue that people are way over-reacting
to covad19. There are a large number of people with these existing conditions.
I don't think this kind of information helps us. There are still lots of
people under 50 getting it.

~~~
ramblerman
I think we should present the facts we have. Your handwaving this away with
unfactual info is worse imo.

> There are still lots of people under 50 getting it.

Getting it perhaps, but only 0.8% of deaths in Italy were under 50. [1]

[1]
[https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Report-C...](https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Report-
COVID-2019_17_marzo-v2.pdf)

~~~
joe_the_user
The thing is, that is Italy and arguably in the US, there are more people
under 50 with serious health problems; diabetes is wide spread as just _one_
example. I believe Italy had a much higher smoking rate someone in their 80s
there could have very weak lungs, again the US profile could be different.

Headline: "COVID-19: Millennials can and are falling seriously sick from
coronavirus, says new data"

[https://nationalpost.com/news/world/covid-19-millennials-
can...](https://nationalpost.com/news/world/covid-19-millennials-can-and-are-
falling-seriously-sick-from-coronavirus-says-new-data)

~~~
lstroud
You don’t think a country where people wear masks to cope with the smog might
have existing respiratory comorbidities?

------
ulfw
How is illness defined? I don't know anyone who doesn't have some kind of
illness. Some major, most very minor.

~~~
etrk
See Table 1 in the original study:
[https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Report-C...](https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Report-
COVID-2019_17_marzo-v2.pdf)

    
    
      Ipertensione arteriosa (high blood pressure) 76.1%
      Diabete mellito (diabetes) 35.5%
      Cardiopatia ischemica (heart disease) 33%
      Fibrillazione atriale (atrial fibrillation) 24.5%
      Cancro attivo negli ultimi 5 anni (cancer in past 5 years) 20.3%
      Insufficienza renale cronica (renal failure) 18%
      BPCO (COPD) 13.2%
      Ictus (stroke) 9.6%
      Demenza (dementia) 6.8%
      Epatopatia cronica (chronic liver disease) 3.1%
    

Note that the most of the people in this study were 70+ years old, and I have
no idea what the typical prevalence of these diseases is among 70+ year old
Italians.

~~~
RHSeeger
> Diabete mellito (diabetes) 35.5%

I'd be curious to know if their diabetes was well controlled prior to
contracting the corona virus or if it was out of control and already a cause
of risk. Did the corona virus _cause_ the problem, or just make it worse?

~~~
asterisk_
> Il numero medio di patologie osservate in questa popolazione è di 2.7
> (mediana 2, Deviazione Standard 1.6)

It seems the above poses another question; is diabetes just confounding other
underlying condition(s)?

Further, if most of the patients suffered from type 2 diabetes, it would
likely correlate with older age in which case higher fatality rates are to be
expected.

I was unable to find this info publicly available, but diabetes being one of
the "2+ underlying conditions" seems probable.

------
yumraj
One thing I've been curious about is that is the issue that these people had
underlying condition, or is it that they were taking some medication(s) to
treat/cure those underlying condition.

I believe it's the latter, or shall I say mostly-latter, due to the whole ACE2
receptor theory, though I have no data or evidence to back it up.

In other words, if there are two people with hypertension: One knows about it
and is treating it with some medications, while the other doesn't even know
about it and is hence not taking any medication - Do they both have the same
risk profile?

------
rossdavidh
Using Google Translate on the original report (so, auto-translated from
Italian so keep that in mind):

diseases N %

\-----------------------------

Ischemic heart disease 117 33.0

Atrial fibrillation 87 24.5

Stroke 34 9.6

Hypertension 270 76.1

Diabetes mellitus 126 35.5

Dementia 24 6.8

COPD 47 13.2

Active cancer in the past 5 years 72 20.3

Chronic liver disease 11 3.1

Chronic renal failure 64 18.0

Number of pathologies

0 pathologies 3 0.8

1 pathologies 89 25.1

2 pathologies 91 25.6

3 or more pathologies 172 48.5

------
gridlockd
To be fair, it's not so common to make it to your seventies without developing
_any_ of these illnesses. Being old is a risk factor for death from any cause.

We need much more specific data on younger patients with pre-existing
conditions. For example, hypertension or diabetes in your forties, which is
less common but not _that_ uncommon.

We need to know _who_ to isolate if this whole social isolation situation has
to to go on for several months.

~~~
ilaksh
I think they said there were only like 17 deaths for younger people.

------
bpnichol
I'd be interested in having a better sense as to what would constitute an
underlying or pre-existing condition. Is limited to conditions which have
already weakened the immune system?

~~~
jpxw
My impression is that hypertension and diabetes are counted as an underlying
health condition in these statistics.

~~~
mc32
Question is is it the conditions or the medicine they’re taking to counter
those conditions that make the patients more susceptible to the virus.

------
mhb
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22616354](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22616354)

------
KarlKemp
OTOH, quite a few people in their 30s survived only after two weeks on a
ventilator. That involves “fixating the patient, who will otherwise try to
pull out the tube because he believes it is suffocating him”. No fun.

~~~
onetimemanytime
>> _OTOH, quite a few people in their 30s survived only after two weeks on a
ventilator._

I wonder if anyone needing one will get a ventilator when times comes?
Especially since you need it for weeks

~~~
exhilaration
There's ongoing planning for how to distribute limited resources if hospitals
are overwhelmed:

 _Fearing a critical shortage of lifesaving resources as the coronavirus
spreads, Washington State is engaged in grim discussions to determine which
dying patients would get priority._

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/us/coronavirus-in-
seattle...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/us/coronavirus-in-seattle-
washington-state.html)

~~~
jrs235
Article is paywalled for me. Will they take a ventilator off and away from say
an 80 year old and give it to a 30 year old? In other words will they take
ventilators away or will they leave them until a person recovers or dies?

~~~
exhilaration
That's a very good question. The article doesn't mention that scenario.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
They won't start them on people younger than 60 in Italy. They will be making
these decisions in Washington state, which they have been discussing and
putting out in the public so we know ahead of time. All these people wanting
to argue that most people dying are old are leading to one conclusion, I'll be
okay, what's the big deal, I want to go out to a bar, it won't kill me,
probably.

Yeah, so, you want to kill grandma and grandpa? One day you will be that old.
Most people don't want people who are "old", that indefinite thing older than
you, to die. But for those that don't give a shit, think practically, that the
people filling up the hospital for when you get sick, or if you break your arm
or get the regular flu, they will prevent you from being able to see a doctor.

------
Paul-ish
This report is 3 days old. The numbers might be the same, or different.eg
Healthy people might hold on longer.

~~~
ramblerman
Here is a report from Yesterday with the same numbers:
[https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Report-C...](https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Report-
COVID-2019_20_marzo.pdf)

Occams razor applies

------
microdrum
Italy also released demographics unlike most countries.

Median age of dead: 80.

------
t0ughcritic
Saving face?

------
zwm
A dangerous headline.

~~~
aantix
Is it inaccurate?

~~~
NotSammyHagar
It's probably not that inaccurate, but it's incredibly misleading. Of the
people in the hospital, what % are under 60? 50% is one figure I saw. And the
reason this matters is that this is used to justify "I got mine and I don't
care about others" (in this case 'mine' is health and youth).

------
IkmoIkmo
Rather than frame it like this, it would probably be more useful to talk about
whether these people differ from a typical person.

For example, about 80% of adults in the US are either overweight or obese,
with some extremely obese. With that come many issues, e.g. diabetes.

So, are we talking about typical people here, many of whom (us) have some form
of health issue, e.g. a 40 year old who is overweight and may have high blood
pressure because of it, which is very common? Or are we talking about people
we consider truly sick and fragile, e.g. a 82 year old who was hospitalised
for a heart attack last year, has vitamin deficiencies in the bloodwork, and
smoked for 30 years and survived cancer.

~~~
keiferski
From the report:

Median age of patients who died: 80.5 years

Median age of patients with infection: 63 years

So the data would seem to suggest that the overweight 40 year old is not
likely to die and is far below the median for even getting the infection (and
going to the hospital.)

~~~
jacobolus
Keep in mind, in this time of limited doctors and equipment, Italian hospitals
are forced to choose who gets treatment, and they are preferentially treating
young people without preexisting conditions.

------
djdkrkfkgk
Even if so, do you feel like taking a 1% chance?

~~~
adrusi
You know, many people reading this _have_ a pre-existing condition, so even if
this is a reasonable way to interpret the data, it's not much encouragement
for them.

Also, just because 99% of deaths come from people with pre-existing conditions
doesn't mean that someone with no conditions has a 1% chance of dying. That's
just bad math.

------
oakesm9
Just because you don't and a pre-existing condition doesn't mean you should
take this lightly. Stay at home and stay away from people to stop it spreading
to those that do.

Most of us are in the very fortunate position that we can work just as
effectively from home and our jobs are not on the line during this.

~~~
chris_va
It does beg the question, though...

If you can identify (maybe iffy) the subset of the population likely to
required hospitalization, might it make sense to relax the quarantine to only
that subgroup (and immediate contacts)? Building up herd immunity in the rest
of the population once hospital supply lines are robust might be the best way
to unwind the existing rules. With any exponential there is going to be a
crunch no matter how things are done, so unwinding in risk order may be
optimal.

~~~
pengaru
> Building up herd immunity in the rest of the population once hospital supply
> lines are robust might be the best way to unwind the existing rules

Have you been out in public in the USA since the "shelter in place" orders
took effect in any of the affected states/cities?

This is not a quarantine, it's not an absolute containment effort. The effect
is to simply slow the spread to something hopefully less than wildfire.

There will be herd immunity developing regardless of what we do. Vulnerable
people are already afraid and staying home as much as possible.

Plenty of people are out going about their lives despite the shutdown. I'm in
CA and went for a supply run yesterday, Home Depot was _crowded_ with folks
who seemed to be taking advantage of the time off to do home improvement
projects.

Plenty of evidence of sick folks out there being careless as well. The
contagion is spreading either way.

~~~
marknutter
Our quarantine has thus far been socially enforced, and quite effectively I
might add. Schools are closed across the entire nation, despite the fact that
children are the least likely age group to even express symptoms upon
contracting coronavirus, let alone die from it. If the contagion is "spreading
either way", why not allow people in the lowest risk groups continue on with
our lives while we help the most vulnerable groups weather the storm from the
safety of their homes?

~~~
pengaru
Are you aware that even with the measures you're arguing are unnecessary in
place, our hospitals are fast approaching capacity and we're having PPE
shortages?

It'd only be worse.

------
samcal
I think the title should be changed to "99% of the people who have died to
date from Coronavirus had other illnesses". It is irresponsible to frame this
as a complete sample of deaths from this virus. In other words, it would make
sense that the most vulnerable would die first.

~~~
dang
Arguably the past tense in the title implies that.

