6 ms·

You can still get the disease, but not badly enough that you need to be hospitalized, especially if you are younger (old people got the vaccine first). But I th

You can still get the disease, but not badly enough that you need to be hospitalized, especially if you are younger (old people got the vaccine first). But I think it's probably still an OK indicator of herd immunity.

TameAntelope 6y ago
The "younger people are safe" idea is being challenged by these new variants. Additionally, discovering you're in an at-risk group by getting COVID is a pretty terrible outcome.
- throwprogram 6y ago
  Young overweight people are not safe. Young healthy people have never been at risk.
  - totalZero 6y ago
    > Young healthy people have never been at risk. A more accurate way to phrase this is that young non-overweight people are at far less risk than young obese people. It's not true that young healthy people are at no risk. From https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2770542 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...: Among 780969 adults discharged between April 1, 2020, and June 30, 2020, 63103 (8.1%) had the ICD-10 code for COVID-19, of whom 3222 (5%) were nonpregnant young adults (age 18-34 years) admitted to 419 US hospitals. The mean (SD) age of this population was 28.3 (4.4) years; 1849 (57.6%) were men and 1838 (57.0%) were Black or Hispanic. Overall, 1187 (36.8%) had obesity, 789 (24.5%) morbid obesity, 588 (18.2%) diabetes, and 519 (16.1%) hypertension (Table). During hospitalization, 684 patients (21%) required intensive care, 331 (10%) required mechanical ventilation, and 88 (2.7%) died. Vasopressors or inotropes were used for 217 patients (7%), central venous catheters for 283 (9%), and arterial catheters for 192 (6%). The median length of stay was 4 days (interquartile range, 2-7 days). Among those who survived hospitalization, 99 (3%) were discharged to a postacute care facility. Morbid obesity (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 2.30; 95% CI, 1.77-2.98; vs no obesity; P < .001) and hypertension (adjusted OR, 2.36; 95% CI, 1.79-3.12; P < .001) were common and in addition to male sex (adjusted OR, 1.53; 95% CI, 1.20-1.95; P = .001) were associated with greater risk of death or mechanical ventilation. Odds of death or mechanical ventilation did not vary significantly with race and ethnicity. Morbid obesity was present in 140 patients (41%) who died or required ventilation.
    - timr 6y ago
      > of whom 3222 (5%) were nonpregnant young adults (age 18-34 years) admitted to 419 US hospitals. So, 3222 / 780969 = 0.4% of the examined population had admission to a hospital with "Covid" on their forms. Of these, 343 died (0.04% of examined population; Table 1). Obesity, hypertension and diabetes were strongly correlated with death in this population. That's not "no risk", but it's consistent with the OP's comment: the risk for young people is quite low, and is concentrated amongst the obese (and diseases related to obesity).
      - Dylan16807 6y ago
        I don't think "percent of hospital admissions" tells you anything about the risk until you combine it with infection rates.
        timr 6y ago
        You're right, it doesn't. The study posted by the parent is not trying to make claims about absolute risk to young people -- it's focused on the conditional risk, given that a young person is hospitalized in the first place.
        Dylan16807 6y ago
        "Conditional on being hospitalized for any reason" gives you an exceptionally useless number. There are many conditions that would give you a usable risk number, but not that one. Just for the obvious extreme example, if I say 0.01% of total hospitalizations are young people with ebola, that doesn't let you conclude anything about whether catching ebola is "quite low risk" for that group.
        timr 6y ago
        > "Conditional on being hospitalized for any reason" gives you an exceptionally useless number. It tells you what to expect if you're a doctor working with hospitalized patients, or if you run a hospital. This is why they did the study. > if I say 0.01% of total hospitalizations are young people with ebola, that doesn't let you conclude anything about whether catching ebola is "quite low risk" for that group. 1) that's not what this study calculated. You still don't understand it. The equivalent study would be "of young people hospitalized with ebola, what percentage of them die?" (and BTW, the answer would be: "a huge percentage of them"...unlike Covid.) 2) They weren't trying to say anything about catching the virus. I understand that you really want to use this paper to make the claim, but it's just not relevant. They took a population of young people hospitalized for Covid, removed the pregnancies, and looked at what happened to the rest. That's it. It doesn't tell you anything about "catching Covid". It does tell you that if you're young and not obese, not diabetic and don't have heart disease, you are overwhelmingly likely not to die from it.
  - notsuoh 6y ago
    This is not true. This is your only comment. Did you create this account just to spread misinformation?
- JulianMorrison 6y ago
  Also younger people get Long Covid at higher rates.
  - timr 6y ago
    > Also younger people get Long Covid at higher rates. We do not have a definition for "long covid", let alone enough information to make such a claim. At best, this is blatant speculation, at worst, it's completely false. The best data for long-term sequelae of Covid indicate that it correlates with disease severity, which itself correlates (strongly) with age.
    - subsubzero 6y ago
      Agree, the media is really putting this "long covid" fear into younger people to just scare them to not congregate and spread the virus. Long covid can be substituted with long pneumonia, long flu etc. I had long flu back in early 2018, was extremely sick for 3-4 weeks, and went to the Dr. 12 times in 2 months, after almost 3 months was back to normal somewhat, still had cough and fatigue which finally went away after the 3rd month. Very scary times.
      - timr 6y ago
        I try to stay agnostic on the question, and simply counter obviously irresponsible speculation with facts and data. That said, the news media has been shameless about misinterpreting data consistently in order to promote fear. It's a real problem.
- linuxftw 6y ago
  Need to cite data about 'young people' and variants. I've only seen speculative news reports, not hard data.
- anoncake 6y ago
  If only we had been already exposed to the old variants...
- risaacs99 6y ago
  What's been disappointing to me throughout this experience is the fact that a large percentage of people don't seem to understand contagion. The idea that a young person is safe is convenient for young people, but irrelevant. We never seemed to communicate to a segment of the population that we are trying to keep them from spreading it, as well as keeping them from catching it.
  - kdmytro 6y ago
    I think that this is communicated clearly enough. People will do what they want to do. For example, you can't get clearer than printing pictures of cigarettes-affected lungs with warnings on cigarette packs. Yet certain people keep smoking.

TameAntelope 6y ago

The "younger people are safe" idea is being challenged by these new variants. Additionally, discovering you're in an at-risk group by getting COVID is a pretty terrible outcome.

throwprogram 6y ago
Young overweight people are not safe. Young healthy people have never been at risk.
- totalZero 6y ago
  > Young healthy people have never been at risk. A more accurate way to phrase this is that young non-overweight people are at far less risk than young obese people. It's not true that young healthy people are at no risk. From https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2770542 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...: Among 780969 adults discharged between April 1, 2020, and June 30, 2020, 63103 (8.1%) had the ICD-10 code for COVID-19, of whom 3222 (5%) were nonpregnant young adults (age 18-34 years) admitted to 419 US hospitals. The mean (SD) age of this population was 28.3 (4.4) years; 1849 (57.6%) were men and 1838 (57.0%) were Black or Hispanic. Overall, 1187 (36.8%) had obesity, 789 (24.5%) morbid obesity, 588 (18.2%) diabetes, and 519 (16.1%) hypertension (Table). During hospitalization, 684 patients (21%) required intensive care, 331 (10%) required mechanical ventilation, and 88 (2.7%) died. Vasopressors or inotropes were used for 217 patients (7%), central venous catheters for 283 (9%), and arterial catheters for 192 (6%). The median length of stay was 4 days (interquartile range, 2-7 days). Among those who survived hospitalization, 99 (3%) were discharged to a postacute care facility. Morbid obesity (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 2.30; 95% CI, 1.77-2.98; vs no obesity; P < .001) and hypertension (adjusted OR, 2.36; 95% CI, 1.79-3.12; P < .001) were common and in addition to male sex (adjusted OR, 1.53; 95% CI, 1.20-1.95; P = .001) were associated with greater risk of death or mechanical ventilation. Odds of death or mechanical ventilation did not vary significantly with race and ethnicity. Morbid obesity was present in 140 patients (41%) who died or required ventilation.
  - timr 6y ago
    > of whom 3222 (5%) were nonpregnant young adults (age 18-34 years) admitted to 419 US hospitals. So, 3222 / 780969 = 0.4% of the examined population had admission to a hospital with "Covid" on their forms. Of these, 343 died (0.04% of examined population; Table 1). Obesity, hypertension and diabetes were strongly correlated with death in this population. That's not "no risk", but it's consistent with the OP's comment: the risk for young people is quite low, and is concentrated amongst the obese (and diseases related to obesity).
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      I don't think "percent of hospital admissions" tells you anything about the risk until you combine it with infection rates.
      - timr 6y ago
        You're right, it doesn't. The study posted by the parent is not trying to make claims about absolute risk to young people -- it's focused on the conditional risk, given that a young person is hospitalized in the first place.
        Dylan16807 6y ago
        "Conditional on being hospitalized for any reason" gives you an exceptionally useless number. There are many conditions that would give you a usable risk number, but not that one. Just for the obvious extreme example, if I say 0.01% of total hospitalizations are young people with ebola, that doesn't let you conclude anything about whether catching ebola is "quite low risk" for that group.
        timr 6y ago
        > "Conditional on being hospitalized for any reason" gives you an exceptionally useless number. It tells you what to expect if you're a doctor working with hospitalized patients, or if you run a hospital. This is why they did the study. > if I say 0.01% of total hospitalizations are young people with ebola, that doesn't let you conclude anything about whether catching ebola is "quite low risk" for that group. 1) that's not what this study calculated. You still don't understand it. The equivalent study would be "of young people hospitalized with ebola, what percentage of them die?" (and BTW, the answer would be: "a huge percentage of them"...unlike Covid.) 2) They weren't trying to say anything about catching the virus. I understand that you really want to use this paper to make the claim, but it's just not relevant. They took a population of young people hospitalized for Covid, removed the pregnancies, and looked at what happened to the rest. That's it. It doesn't tell you anything about "catching Covid". It does tell you that if you're young and not obese, not diabetic and don't have heart disease, you are overwhelmingly likely not to die from it.
- notsuoh 6y ago
  This is not true. This is your only comment. Did you create this account just to spread misinformation?
JulianMorrison 6y ago
Also younger people get Long Covid at higher rates.
- timr 6y ago
  > Also younger people get Long Covid at higher rates. We do not have a definition for "long covid", let alone enough information to make such a claim. At best, this is blatant speculation, at worst, it's completely false. The best data for long-term sequelae of Covid indicate that it correlates with disease severity, which itself correlates (strongly) with age.
  - subsubzero 6y ago
    Agree, the media is really putting this "long covid" fear into younger people to just scare them to not congregate and spread the virus. Long covid can be substituted with long pneumonia, long flu etc. I had long flu back in early 2018, was extremely sick for 3-4 weeks, and went to the Dr. 12 times in 2 months, after almost 3 months was back to normal somewhat, still had cough and fatigue which finally went away after the 3rd month. Very scary times.
    - timr 6y ago
      I try to stay agnostic on the question, and simply counter obviously irresponsible speculation with facts and data. That said, the news media has been shameless about misinterpreting data consistently in order to promote fear. It's a real problem.
linuxftw 6y ago
Need to cite data about 'young people' and variants. I've only seen speculative news reports, not hard data.
anoncake 6y ago
If only we had been already exposed to the old variants...
risaacs99 6y ago
What's been disappointing to me throughout this experience is the fact that a large percentage of people don't seem to understand contagion. The idea that a young person is safe is convenient for young people, but irrelevant. We never seemed to communicate to a segment of the population that we are trying to keep them from spreading it, as well as keeping them from catching it.
- kdmytro 6y ago
  I think that this is communicated clearly enough. People will do what they want to do. For example, you can't get clearer than printing pictures of cigarettes-affected lungs with warnings on cigarette packs. Yet certain people keep smoking.