5 ms·

I have been looking for one number. Maybe someone can help me. What is the mortality rate for unvaxxed healthy adults between the age of 18 and 50? I can’t help

by human 5y ago

I have been looking for one number. Maybe someone can help me. What is the mortality rate for unvaxxed healthy adults between the age of 18 and 50? I can’t help but be dubious that this group needs vaccination.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Kenji 5y ago
About 0.0005%. Got it from a Covid risk calculator that got posted here recently (plus 1+ years of research of raw numbers). The risk is staggeringly low for young people.
jdminhbg 5y ago
That one number can't exist, because there is no one definition of "healthy."
- lambdaba 5y ago
  There is, especially related to Covid: metabolic health (see https://www.unc.edu/posts/2018/11/28/only-12-percent-of-american-adults-are-metabolically-healthy-carolina-study-finds/ https://www.unc.edu/posts/2018/11/28/only-12-percent-of-amer...), which of course correlates to immune system health. There is only one definition of physical health, and that is the proper functioning of one's bodily processes, with the functioning of the immune system as the centerpiece.
almost_usual 5y ago
Mortality only matters to you. Hospitalization matters to everyone.
- howlong 5y ago
  https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(21)00947-8.pdf https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736... This study suggests about 0.5% of unvaccinated population requires hospitalization. Obviously just one study, but across about six million people, seems a decent back of the envelope guess.
  - cortesoft 5y ago
    Yeah, and our hospitals are not prepared to have 0.5% of the population hospitalized with covid.
  - nradov 5y ago
    So far about 2% of the US population had already been hospitalized with COVID-19 as of May 2021. The total is even higher now. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
    - howlong 5y ago
      6.2 million, as cited in that article, would be about 1.8% of the US population.
      - nradov 5y ago
        Right, sorry I copied the wrong number. Edited the comment above.
twofornone 5y ago
Same here. None of the data feels quite transparent. There seems to be a major taboo around supposing that beyond the R0 value which tends to overwhelm local hospitals during outbreaks, covid is actually not a serious concern for the vast, vast majority of <50, not obese/overweight people. And I recently discovered that the reporting of overwhelmed hospitals is somewhat misleading as well, as in the US hospitals typically operate at 80-90% capacity for financial reasons, especially ICU wings which are expensive to upkeep on standby. So when the news reports that hospitals $CITY are overwhelmed, that's can be as little as ≈10% increase in patients. If anything good comes of covid, hopefully we can see some effort to improve surge capacity in the US, but I'm not holding my breath.
lambdaba 5y ago
There is a big problem with groups based solely by age; in truth, if you are metabolically unhealthy, either by diagnosis or have a suspicion you might be (if you're living a typical western lifestyle, chances are you are - 88% of american adults are metabolically unhealthy, look it up), and unwilling to make the necessary lifestyle changes, there is a possibility that vaccination might benefit you, but even there there is a spectrum, with factors increasing such as taking medication, being chronically stressed/depressed, not sleeping well, etc. All in all, what I wanted to say is that the message to the masses is intentionally or not simplified, and it hides the nuances that everyone should apply to themselves. In my case, I have made drastic changes to better my health after a diagnosis of severe autoimmune illness more than a decade ago, and today am in much better health than I was then, so I have no benefit to expect from taking the vaccine.
tomp 5y ago
IFR (infection fatality rate) is estimated to be 0.07% for younger than 50. Two sources: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00698-1/tables/3 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00698-1... https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0246831 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
meragrin_ 5y ago
Sure, THAT group may not need it to survive a covid infection, but it is not just about surviving a covid infection. It is about reducing covid in general so we can get closer to normal sooner.
- sk2020 5y ago
  This is normal now. There is no pharmaceutical product which provides sterile immunity. There is no population where transmission has been eliminated. Vaccine As A Service is the new business model. Or if you like gallows humor: Two weeks? What do you need to flatten the curve for? Here’s your mask, now wear two until we have 70% vaccination, and I’ll let you out of the concentration camp when we reach 90% vaccination. Now you just owe me two weeks for delta.
some_furry 5y ago
Everyone needs vaccination. Full stop. I wrote more about this topic here: https://soatok.blog/2021/05/10/why-i-chose-to-be-vaccinated-against-covid-19/ https://soatok.blog/2021/05/10/why-i-chose-to-be-vaccinated-... Some real-world data: https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1437412311552102402 https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/143741231155210240... A Twitter thread from a scientist and vaccine researcher: https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1438145537857961997 https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/143814553785796199...
- distrill 5y ago
  I will also advocate for everyone to get vaccinated, but this isn't helpful at all.
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  Young males perhaps shouldn't be vaccinated since they are more likely to have a side effect than covid. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-risk-from-pfizer-jab-side-effect-than-covid-suggests-study https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-r...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - anonuser123456 5y ago
    That’s not the claim in the article. The article states that boys are 6 times more likely to get myocarditis than be hospitalized with covid. But such a claim is inherently biased. You have an extremely well followed population on the vaccine case, and a relatively poorly followed population in the infected case. As such, it should not be surprising when results like this are found; boys in that age range are 3-9 times more likely to get myocarditis from COVID itself than the vaccine: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25133462-800-myocarditis-is-more-common-after-covid-19-infection-than-vaccination/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25133462-800-myocardi...
obelos 5y ago
How can we be 18 months into a global pandemic and so many people still not understand that diseases are contagious and “healthy” people who manage to avoid dying from the disease still spread it and also take away healthcare resources from other people who need treatment for any number of injuries and maladies?
- spoonjim 5y ago
  I didn't get vaccinated for others, I got vaccinated for myself. Even an 18 year old is much safer with the vaccine than with the virus.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
cortesoft 5y ago
Personally surviving is only one of the reasons you should get vaccinated. It also helps reduce the prevalence of covid in the community in general, which will prevent other people from dying, not just the person who is vaccinated. This is the same thing with wearing masks... you can't just look at the effect on the person wearing the mask, but also on other people around them.
distrill 5y ago
I am confused at how people are still asking questions like this, seemingly in good faith. The point of masks and vaccines and even staying home as needed, is not specifically to prevent healthy 18-50 year olds from dying. It's to limit the spread to everyone else, bunging up hospital capacity, killing off old folk needlessly, and causing local governments to freak out and impose restrictions because their hospitals are at capacity. Maybe it's not good faith, I don't know at this point.
- wallacoloo 5y ago
  If you’re on this site, you probably work in an industry where it feels like very large things can get done in 18 months. I remember in February 2020, before anything reached the US, watching China build a new hospital in all of 10 days. I have some vague understandings of “all-hands-on-deck” govt projects of the past. FDR’s WPA jobs program, etc. So it’s dishearteningly easy to look at this situation from that point of view: “my government, and everyone currently exercising power, has had 18 months to do the dirty work of expanding health capacity, retrofitting buildings to make them safer in the presence of a virus (e.g. open-air supermarkets), and whatever else is necessary to help us all live how we’d like to during this time,” and instead they’ve not really tackled any of those things. We got the vaccine, which is a huge triumph, but beyond that it’s just “hey we need you as an individual to stay at home another couple years while we slack off and keep ignoring any opportunity for letting you live the life you did before.” I know not all real world systems are as flexible as software systems, especially true of the Frankenstein healthcare system we have here. But it really is not hard for me to say “if this were my problem, I would solve it like an engineer, by building (more capacity, tools to make it easier to grow manpower in the areas they’re needed).” And then be upset at the people who are asking me to make my own life shit for another couple years so that they can avoid making life-long improvements to the systems that need it. Because if our roles were reversed here — if I were the one at risk of this disease — I would never ask of them what they’re asking of me. It’s just not how I think about the world or how I think about solving problems. I think some people voicing GP’s comment really are doing it in good faith. People have different lived experiences that lead to radically different ways of thinking about the world and how to act within it. These disagreements will always exist. The pragmatist accepts that and says that of the range of possible solutions to your problem, the most successful is the one that can be grounded in this world where people disagree with each other and pursue their own interests.
spoonjim 5y ago
With essentially zero short-term side effects of vaccination, compared to a significant (if not large) short-term mortality and medium-term morbidity from Covid, it is absolutely lunatic to not get the vaccine unless you have specific immune/allergic/blood conditions.
- sk2020 5y ago
  Myocarditis is not a side effect?
bryan0 5y ago
This study might help because it breaks down hospitalized patients by comorbidities: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-care/underlyingconditions.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-care/... of the ~7000 people that died of covid in the study ~1000 had no comorbidities. unfortunately this doesnt break down by vax status, but based on other studies ~90% of hospitalizations are unvaxed. So you can probably get an order of magnitude approximation for your metric. Unfortunately though this isn't the only metric that should be considered because people with no comorbidities can transmit the virus to people with comorbidities, so you really want to take that into account.
simonsarris 5y ago
In healthy individuals? Very small. In the USA, a not very healthy country, only 3,728 of 529,402 deaths occurred under the age of 29. (38.7% of the population, 0.6% of the deaths.) I was expecting it to be much higher just based on obesity and diabetes and other comorbidity rates alone. The inflection point happens in the 40's or 50's: People under 40 are 52% of the population and 2% of COVID deaths (11,212) Which of course means people over 40 are 48% of the population and 98% of COVID deaths (529,402) These numbers reflect only cases where the CDC knows their age. The stats are here, which has a nice graph showing just how outsized the deaths as people get older: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographics https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographics (scroll to "Deaths by Age Group") Covid is (literally) exponentially worse as you get older. But it's not really an issue for young, healthy people. Alas, not very many people can truly call themselves healthy, which is a concern in its own right.
nradov 5y ago
I doubt you will find that one number anywhere. The CDC estimated a mortality rate of 0.06% for the 18-49 age group, but that doesn't account for health status. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd... Of those deaths, many had pre-existing conditions such as cancer, heart failure, obesity, and diabetes which drastically increased their risks. You'll have to do your own calculations on how that impacts your expected mortality rate. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm I encourage healthy adults to get vaccinated because the personal benefits outweigh the risks, and it can help reduce load on the healthcare system. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037e1.htm

by human 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Kenji 5y ago

About 0.0005%. Got it from a Covid risk calculator that got posted here recently (plus 1+ years of research of raw numbers). The risk is staggeringly low for young people.

jdminhbg 5y ago

That one number can't exist, because there is no one definition of "healthy."

lambdaba 5y ago
There is, especially related to Covid: metabolic health (see https://www.unc.edu/posts/2018/11/28/only-12-percent-of-american-adults-are-metabolically-healthy-carolina-study-finds/ https://www.unc.edu/posts/2018/11/28/only-12-percent-of-amer...), which of course correlates to immune system health. There is only one definition of physical health, and that is the proper functioning of one's bodily processes, with the functioning of the immune system as the centerpiece.

almost_usual 5y ago

Mortality only matters to you. Hospitalization matters to everyone.

howlong 5y ago
https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(21)00947-8.pdf https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736... This study suggests about 0.5% of unvaccinated population requires hospitalization. Obviously just one study, but across about six million people, seems a decent back of the envelope guess.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  Yeah, and our hospitals are not prepared to have 0.5% of the population hospitalized with covid.
- nradov 5y ago
  So far about 2% of the US population had already been hospitalized with COVID-19 as of May 2021. The total is even higher now. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
  - howlong 5y ago
    6.2 million, as cited in that article, would be about 1.8% of the US population.
    - nradov 5y ago
      Right, sorry I copied the wrong number. Edited the comment above.

twofornone 5y ago

Same here. None of the data feels quite transparent. There seems to be a major taboo around supposing that beyond the R0 value which tends to overwhelm local hospitals during outbreaks, covid is actually not a serious concern for the vast, vast majority of <50, not obese/overweight people. And I recently discovered that the reporting of overwhelmed hospitals is somewhat misleading as well, as in the US hospitals typically operate at 80-90% capacity for financial reasons, especially ICU wings which are expensive to upkeep on standby. So when the news reports that hospitals $CITY are overwhelmed, that's can be as little as ≈10% increase in patients. If anything good comes of covid, hopefully we can see some effort to improve surge capacity in the US, but I'm not holding my breath.

lambdaba 5y ago

There is a big problem with groups based solely by age; in truth, if you are metabolically unhealthy, either by diagnosis or have a suspicion you might be (if you're living a typical western lifestyle, chances are you are - 88% of american adults are metabolically unhealthy, look it up), and unwilling to make the necessary lifestyle changes, there is a possibility that vaccination might benefit you, but even there there is a spectrum, with factors increasing such as taking medication, being chronically stressed/depressed, not sleeping well, etc. All in all, what I wanted to say is that the message to the masses is intentionally or not simplified, and it hides the nuances that everyone should apply to themselves. In my case, I have made drastic changes to better my health after a diagnosis of severe autoimmune illness more than a decade ago, and today am in much better health than I was then, so I have no benefit to expect from taking the vaccine.

tomp 5y ago

IFR (infection fatality rate) is estimated to be 0.07% for younger than 50. Two sources: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00698-1/tables/3 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00698-1... https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0246831 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

meragrin_ 5y ago

Sure, THAT group may not need it to survive a covid infection, but it is not just about surviving a covid infection. It is about reducing covid in general so we can get closer to normal sooner.

sk2020 5y ago
This is normal now. There is no pharmaceutical product which provides sterile immunity. There is no population where transmission has been eliminated. Vaccine As A Service is the new business model. Or if you like gallows humor: Two weeks? What do you need to flatten the curve for? Here’s your mask, now wear two until we have 70% vaccination, and I’ll let you out of the concentration camp when we reach 90% vaccination. Now you just owe me two weeks for delta.

some_furry 5y ago

Everyone needs vaccination. Full stop. I wrote more about this topic here: https://soatok.blog/2021/05/10/why-i-chose-to-be-vaccinated-against-covid-19/ https://soatok.blog/2021/05/10/why-i-chose-to-be-vaccinated-... Some real-world data: https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1437412311552102402 https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/143741231155210240... A Twitter thread from a scientist and vaccine researcher: https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1438145537857961997 https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/143814553785796199...

distrill 5y ago
I will also advocate for everyone to get vaccinated, but this isn't helpful at all.
_-david-_ 5y ago
Young males perhaps shouldn't be vaccinated since they are more likely to have a side effect than covid. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-risk-from-pfizer-jab-side-effect-than-covid-suggests-study https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-r...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- anonuser123456 5y ago
  That’s not the claim in the article. The article states that boys are 6 times more likely to get myocarditis than be hospitalized with covid. But such a claim is inherently biased. You have an extremely well followed population on the vaccine case, and a relatively poorly followed population in the infected case. As such, it should not be surprising when results like this are found; boys in that age range are 3-9 times more likely to get myocarditis from COVID itself than the vaccine: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25133462-800-myocarditis-is-more-common-after-covid-19-infection-than-vaccination/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25133462-800-myocardi...

obelos 5y ago

How can we be 18 months into a global pandemic and so many people still not understand that diseases are contagious and “healthy” people who manage to avoid dying from the disease still spread it and also take away healthcare resources from other people who need treatment for any number of injuries and maladies?

spoonjim 5y ago
I didn't get vaccinated for others, I got vaccinated for myself. Even an 18 year old is much safer with the vaccine than with the virus.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

cortesoft 5y ago

Personally surviving is only one of the reasons you should get vaccinated. It also helps reduce the prevalence of covid in the community in general, which will prevent other people from dying, not just the person who is vaccinated. This is the same thing with wearing masks... you can't just look at the effect on the person wearing the mask, but also on other people around them.

distrill 5y ago

I am confused at how people are still asking questions like this, seemingly in good faith. The point of masks and vaccines and even staying home as needed, is not specifically to prevent healthy 18-50 year olds from dying. It's to limit the spread to everyone else, bunging up hospital capacity, killing off old folk needlessly, and causing local governments to freak out and impose restrictions because their hospitals are at capacity. Maybe it's not good faith, I don't know at this point.

wallacoloo 5y ago
If you’re on this site, you probably work in an industry where it feels like very large things can get done in 18 months. I remember in February 2020, before anything reached the US, watching China build a new hospital in all of 10 days. I have some vague understandings of “all-hands-on-deck” govt projects of the past. FDR’s WPA jobs program, etc. So it’s dishearteningly easy to look at this situation from that point of view: “my government, and everyone currently exercising power, has had 18 months to do the dirty work of expanding health capacity, retrofitting buildings to make them safer in the presence of a virus (e.g. open-air supermarkets), and whatever else is necessary to help us all live how we’d like to during this time,” and instead they’ve not really tackled any of those things. We got the vaccine, which is a huge triumph, but beyond that it’s just “hey we need you as an individual to stay at home another couple years while we slack off and keep ignoring any opportunity for letting you live the life you did before.” I know not all real world systems are as flexible as software systems, especially true of the Frankenstein healthcare system we have here. But it really is not hard for me to say “if this were my problem, I would solve it like an engineer, by building (more capacity, tools to make it easier to grow manpower in the areas they’re needed).” And then be upset at the people who are asking me to make my own life shit for another couple years so that they can avoid making life-long improvements to the systems that need it. Because if our roles were reversed here — if I were the one at risk of this disease — I would never ask of them what they’re asking of me. It’s just not how I think about the world or how I think about solving problems. I think some people voicing GP’s comment really are doing it in good faith. People have different lived experiences that lead to radically different ways of thinking about the world and how to act within it. These disagreements will always exist. The pragmatist accepts that and says that of the range of possible solutions to your problem, the most successful is the one that can be grounded in this world where people disagree with each other and pursue their own interests.

spoonjim 5y ago

With essentially zero short-term side effects of vaccination, compared to a significant (if not large) short-term mortality and medium-term morbidity from Covid, it is absolutely lunatic to not get the vaccine unless you have specific immune/allergic/blood conditions.

sk2020 5y ago
Myocarditis is not a side effect?

bryan0 5y ago

This study might help because it breaks down hospitalized patients by comorbidities: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-care/underlyingconditions.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-care/... of the ~7000 people that died of covid in the study ~1000 had no comorbidities. unfortunately this doesnt break down by vax status, but based on other studies ~90% of hospitalizations are unvaxed. So you can probably get an order of magnitude approximation for your metric. Unfortunately though this isn't the only metric that should be considered because people with no comorbidities can transmit the virus to people with comorbidities, so you really want to take that into account.

simonsarris 5y ago

In healthy individuals? Very small. In the USA, a not very healthy country, only 3,728 of 529,402 deaths occurred under the age of 29. (38.7% of the population, 0.6% of the deaths.) I was expecting it to be much higher just based on obesity and diabetes and other comorbidity rates alone. The inflection point happens in the 40's or 50's: People under 40 are 52% of the population and 2% of COVID deaths (11,212) Which of course means people over 40 are 48% of the population and 98% of COVID deaths (529,402) These numbers reflect only cases where the CDC knows their age. The stats are here, which has a nice graph showing just how outsized the deaths as people get older: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographics https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographics (scroll to "Deaths by Age Group") Covid is (literally) exponentially worse as you get older. But it's not really an issue for young, healthy people. Alas, not very many people can truly call themselves healthy, which is a concern in its own right.

nradov 5y ago

I doubt you will find that one number anywhere. The CDC estimated a mortality rate of 0.06% for the 18-49 age group, but that doesn't account for health status. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd... Of those deaths, many had pre-existing conditions such as cancer, heart failure, obesity, and diabetes which drastically increased their risks. You'll have to do your own calculations on how that impacts your expected mortality rate. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm I encourage healthy adults to get vaccinated because the personal benefits outweigh the risks, and it can help reduce load on the healthcare system. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037e1.htm