
Coronavirus: A third of hospital patients develop dangerous blood clots - clouddrover
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52662065
======
trikonasana
Misleading title and misleading article. Better title would be "One of the
major complications facing hospitalized coronavirus patients is blood clots".

There is one line that quotes a doctor stating, "He believes the number of
critically ill coronavirus patients developing blood clots could be
significantly higher than the published data in Europe of up to 30%." No
mention of the percentage of cases that require hospitalizations in the first
place, let alone any non-anecdotal evidence to back his claim.

I wish we would stop sharing articles that are not backed by any scent of a
scientific study or peer review. It leads to fear, like others have pointed
out.

~~~
patcon
A quick Google seems to indicate that the title is fair:

From news article:

> Up to 30% of patients who are seriously ill with coronavirus are developing
> dangerous blood clots, according to medical experts.

(One doctor anecdotally thinks its higher)

From journal article
[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01403-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01403-8)

> Studies from the Netherlands and France suggest that clots arise in 20–30%
> of critically ill COVID-19 patients. 1,2

But yes, rounding "20-30%" up to "one third" is a bit odd. The news article
seems to leave the reader to do their own discovery of sources. So you're not
wrong to be skeptical, but you're not right that it's wrong :)

~~~
toolz
There's a significant difference in hospital patients vs critically ill
hospital patients. So yes, the article is wrong.

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umanwizard
It's good that doctors and scientists are learning more about the virus, which
will help them improve the standard of treatment, so I welcome this discovery.

On the other hand, I find that the style of reporting contributes to the
irrational panic and fear around COVID-19.

Only a tiny fraction of those with COVID-19 are admitted to the hospital, a
third of those develop blood clots (assuming the reporting is accurate), and,
presumably, in some unknown fraction of those cases, the blood clots cause
death or permanent injury.

However, people will focus on this "1/3 of people get blood clots!" number,
and their intuition about the risk of themselves or people they care about
being maimed or killed by COVID-19 will increase irrationally.

~~~
flatline
It is currently the leasing cause of death in the US, I feel like there is
legitimate reason for concern, if not alarm. No, it’s not going to kill 5% of
the population, especially not if hospitals remain at or below capacity. But
give it time and people will become less cautious Regardless of government
orders, especially months from now when cold and flu season start back up. So
things are mostly still “fine”, despite 80k+ deaths, but that is not
guaranteed to hold.

~~~
umanwizard
I never said COVID-19 is not serious, so I’m not sure what this has to do with
my comment.

I think it’s a cause for concern, yes — and the current reaction is miles
beyond what can reasonably be described as “concern”.

I think heart disease — the #2 cause of death in the US — is serious too, but
I still don’t think sensationalism and panic about it is helpful.

~~~
kweinber
Heart disease is the leading cause of death because heart stoppage is the
definition of death and the “default” value when the actual cause of death is
unknown.

Marking cardiac arrest as cause of death is like filling in the blank with
“died by not living anymore”.

Therefore it is not a meaningful stat to say the heart disease is the #1 or #2
cause of death. I cringe when that is used by fitness gurus to justify their
videos or when scientific discussions are derailed by making the comparison.

~~~
umanwizard
Sure. Replace that with the third, fourth, or fifth cause of death, and my
point is the same.

~~~
kweinber
Not really. You’d have to replace it with the third, fourth, and fifth
COMBINED. Since your point is that Coronavirus concerns are overblown, you
might want to reconsider it.

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jansan
The Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf has conducted autopsies in more
than 190 people who died from corona, although German officials recommended
not to do any autopsies.

Their findings are similar. In the first 12 cases they found thrombosis in 7
cases[1]

They recommend prophylactic treatment with Heparin, even in ambulantory care.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32374815](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32374815)

------
censorsheep
I am definitely an anti-lockdown person. I wanted to see the numbers for
myself so I used data from the CDC's site and the WHO's site. Please check my
math and reasoning [https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3668979/is-this-
an-...](https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3668979/is-this-an-okay-way-
to-calculate-covid-19-death-rates)

My calculations for the Coronavirus death rate:

<5 0%

5-14 0%

15-24 0%

25-34 .04%

35-44 .12%

45-54 .37%

55-64 .9%

65-74 2.1%

75-84 5.5%

85+ 16.9%

Based on this data I think the lockdown is an absurdly heavy handed approach.
Subjective opinion increases -> It's about older voters. In Eric Weinstein's
words "they are hoarding well-being on every front" to the point that they
will gladly screw over the younger generations.

We need to end this nonsense ASAP.

~~~
sj4nz
Consider that the first-order effects of just _older people dying_ may not be
everything entailed with this outbreak:

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kawasaki-disease-coronavirus-
il...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kawasaki-disease-coronavirus-illness-
possible-covid-19-link-blamed-children-deaths-new-york/)

A _novel_ virus means we don't know what it does to everyone yet. At a
minimum, closing the schools globally probably has saved millions of children
from this "new polio"... for now.

Perhaps also maybe grandparents would like to live long enough to see their
_healthy_ grandchildren again.

~~~
lbeltrame
It is a novel virus, but not a magic virus like the press says. Take for
example the brain infections: it's a feature of other coronaviruses (and I
only found out by reading the literature), not just this one.

The school closure was criticized basing on _current evidence_ in an
editorial[1] on Disease and Childhood (sister publication of the British
Medical Journal). They also go over the reports of Kawasaki disease saying
that there needs to be more evidence to support the claim.

Also a limited test in two schools in New Wales, where contact tracing was
used, there was one reported infection of a student by another out of 853
recorded contacts. There are indications that a. grave effects are rare in
children (rare does not mean zero) and b. children aren't as good "spreaders"
of this disease as adults.

[1]
[https://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2020/05/05/archdischild-20...](https://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2020/05/05/archdischild-2020-319474)

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DoreenMichele
I'm glad to see information on the blood aspects of the condition getting some
press. That's another way that blood oxygen levels can be suppressed and blood
issues suppressing oxygen levels would help explain the terrible figures
associated with ventilator treatments, where people are dying at shockingly
high rates and ventilators aren't doing what they normally do for patients put
on them for other conditions.

------
sheinsheish
Have a look at this video and the previous from the series. He indicates which
episodes are related.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOlVkES_kC8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOlVkES_kC8)

------
acd
I think nitric oxide gas and L-arginine may help prevent blood clots.

[https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2003/10_17_03...](https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2003/10_17_03.html)

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Spooky23
Many hospitals are pretty awful about patient care in normal times. I’m sure
many of these clot situations are neglect due to understaffing.

------
dustinmoris
Sitting on long haul flights also SIGNIFICANTLY increases the risk of blood
clots, just like thousand other things in life. That’s why it’s important to
not be a fat McDonalds eating potato and be active in life and look after your
health so when a virus makes you ill you’re not gonna crumble and die.

No news here, just normal life, everything has consequences, unfit people die
earlier, that’s how nature works in general.

EDIT: Just to clarify, not saying that any death is less tragic, just that
this is really not news worthy. It’s pretty well understood that blood clots
can happen when people are ill and even when they are not ill, and the fatter
one is the higher the chance of this happening. Journalists really scrape for
any BS to write about recently.

