15 ms·

From the article, “The Covid-19 pandemic is the primary cause of the decline.” And it is going to decline further. Covid affects multiple organ systems; the ac

by nishs 4y ago

From the article, “The Covid-19 pandemic is the primary cause of the decline.” And it is going to decline further. Covid affects multiple organ systems; the acute phase of the infection, it is safe to say at this point, is not the primary cause of concern. Covid-19 infection increases the chances of a stroke 4x and of heart failure more than 10x, among other disorders, within 12 months of infection. [1] A chief scientist at the WHO recently said [2], “We need to prepare for large increases in cardiovascular, neurological & mental health disorders in countries affected by the #SARSCoV2 #pandemic.” [1]: https://twitter.com/erictopol/status/1564612325356670978 https://twitter.com/erictopol/status/1564612325356670978 [2]: https://twitter.com/doctorsoumya/status/1564649057599078401 https://twitter.com/doctorsoumya/status/1564649057599078401

tjr225 4y ago
musha68k 4y ago
The effects are also compounding with each re-infection.
- haggy102 4y ago
  Source?
  - stevenrj 4y ago
    https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1749502/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1749502/v1
    - EGreg 4y ago
      "However, whether reinfection adds to the risk incurred after the first infection is not clear."
      - nishs 4y ago
        The sentence you’ve quoted, from the abstract of the paper, refers to the state of knowledge before this paper was written/published. The results section of the paper updates this knowledge. It says: “Compared to those with first infection, those with reinfection exhibited increased risk and excess burden of all-cause mortality, hospitalization, and at least one sequela in the acute phase and the post-acute phase of the reinfection.” “… the risk was higher in those who had two infections (HR 2.11 (2.07, 2.15); burden 234.58 (227.08, 241.92)), and highest in those with three or more infections (HR 3.00 (2.71, 3.31) …”
        hackerlight 4y ago
        Hate to be that guy, but people who are susceptible to reinfection are also probably less healthy.
        bee_rider 4y ago
        I'm pretty sure everyone is susceptible to reinfection after a while.
        epgui 4y ago
        Affirmative. (biochemist)
        hackerlight 4y ago
        Susceptibility is also a spectrum, though, which is what I meant to get at and failed to communicate clearly. Immunocompromised people are probably more susceptible than others? I don't have data on that, it's just a guess.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - qbasic_forever 4y ago
    https://erictopol.substack.com/p/a-reinfection-red-flag https://erictopol.substack.com/p/a-reinfection-red-flag Preprint of a major study from VA data. It will probably publish in the near future and I haven't heard any major changes or revisions.
    - timr 4y ago
      This study is one of a number of different ones from the same lab (Al Aly), taking a dataset of older, sicker people (US veterans who seek hospital care at the VA), and looking at groups who had two hospital confirmed infections, vs. those with one hospital confirmed infection, vs those who went to the hospital with no confirmed infections. Per the paper's abstract: > We show that COMPARED TO PEOPLE WITH FIRST INFECTION, reinfection contributes additional risks of all-cause mortality, hospitalization, and adverse health outcomes (emphasis mine) All this paper shows is that if you follow a cohort of older, sicker people -- people who are seeking hospital care! people who were infected and possibly hospitalized in the first wave! -- long enough for them to get multiple reinfections (in this case, about 2 years, from the original Covid wave through the Omicron wave), the overall rates of a (selected) set of different health conditions goes up over time. They have not shown that the increased risk is because of Covid. The paper has no way of following the younger, healthier people (particularly in the later waves, where home testing was common) who never set foot in a VA hospital and had a Covid test, despite having Covid. There is a huge selection bias [1] problem here. There may be others, such as immortal time bias. [2] What you would like to see in a study like this is that it is prospective (the participants were selected randomly in advance and followed over time); but this study is retrospective. You would also like to see a control against a similar illness, such as flu or non-Covid pneumonia; this study does not have such a comparison (despite being trivial to make), and resorts to using "atopic dermatitis and neoplasms" as a "negative control" instead. As an aside, Al Aly has a history of using a weird grab-bag of negative control illnesses against this same dataset across his various papers. One wonders why he doesn't always use the same illness as a negative control -- presumably atopic dermatitis didn't suddenly start being unassociated with Covid between his studies, right? Would the results not be the same if he was consistent? I'm guessing not. In short, this study is confounded, and Eric Topol really needs to tone down his fear-mongering. Even if you believe the top-line results, unless you are an elderly person sick enough to be seeking regular hospital care, this has very little relevance to your risk profile. [1] https://catalogofbias.org/biases/selection-bias/ https://catalogofbias.org/biases/selection-bias/ [2] https://catalogofbias.org/biases/immortal-time-bias/ https://catalogofbias.org/biases/immortal-time-bias/
- ArboriaInstitut 4y ago
  Do any of the epidemiologists/virologists who are saying this offer any thoughts as to why SARS-CoV-2 and the immune response to it are so different from every other novel virus which has emerged in the past? Is there any precedent at all for "a virus which reinfects you over and over with no reduction in lethality/sequelae from the repeat infections"?
  - resoluteteeth 4y ago
    What if these sequalae aren't different from other coronaviruses?
    - ArboriaInstitut 4y ago
      Then obviously something else would have to be the main cause of the bump in excess deaths that's been observed.
      - eastbound 4y ago
        Lockdowns. It’s the only coronavirus we’ve treated by asking everyone to stay home. The impact on being healthy (sports, sun exposure, happiness) is huge.
  - sandworm101 4y ago
    Yes. Flu. Constant (yearly) reinfection by slightly different variants with near-similar mortality regardless of previous variant exposure.
  - ajross 4y ago
    > so different from every other novel virus which has emerged in the past There's only one novel pandemic to study every century or so. I don't think there's any evidence at all that it's "so different". It's just better studied because in 1918 only a handful of scientists even knew that "viruses" existed.
    - ArboriaInstitut 4y ago
- noduerme 4y ago
  Has there been anything published yet as to whether this holds true controlling for which strain of covid one is reinfected with, or whether one is vaccinated? I know at least one vaccinated person who's been reinfected with no symptoms at all the second time, and only knew because they had to get tested.
zackees 4y ago
[dead]
buscoquadnary 4y ago
[flagged]
- midoridensha 4y ago
  A lot of people believe that mental problems are all caused by disembodied souls of people from the planet Teegeeack, brought here by Xenu of the Galactic Confederation in spacegoing DC-10s and blown up by A-bombs in Hawaii.
  - syzar 4y ago
    I agree with your overall point but at this time there are, thankfully, few believers of Scientology. Hopefully at some point in the future encountering an anti-vaxer will be as rare as encountering a Scientologist.
    - faddypaddy34 4y ago
      Explain how the COVID vaccine which does not 1) Prevent becoming infected with COVID, 2) Does not prevent spreading COVID to others, 3) Does not prevent COVID symptoms is a vaccine again? Also using the CDC definition that was specifically changed because the COVID vaccine didn't meet the definition of vaccine doesn't count. Additionally how about we don't just jump to lumping huge numbers of people into out groups to feel better about ourselves and create divisiveness? Or go to Reddit where you can cheer on people dying. https://yournews.com/2022/07/11/2375584/emails-confirm-why-cdc-changed-definitions-of-vaccine-vaccinated/ https://yournews.com/2022/07/11/2375584/emails-confirm-why-c...
      - bglazer 4y ago
        Do you think the vaccine lowers the probability that a person will die from an infection?
        faddypaddy34 4y ago
        That is not a vaccine. No one calls corticosteroids or antibiotics vaccines yet both meet the definition of lowering the probability someone will dies from an infection. So does taking care of yourself, getting exercise, eating a healthy diet, not sitting still all day, and a large swath of other things none of which are called vaccines.
dqpb 4y ago
> Covid-19 infection increases the chances of a stroke 4x and of heart failure more than 10x, among other disorders, within 12 months of infection. For everybody or for some people? What is the causal chain?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tomrod 4y ago
  Off the cuff, it sounds like a reference to an assessment of a risk-adjusted population as a whole relative to pre-COVID baseline. COVID-19 does massive damage generally.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- sandworm101 4y ago
  Every significant disease can have longstanding impacts. Damage is often cumulative. Actual causation can come via many routes. One person might have diminished physical fitness due to weeks/months laid up with the disease. Another might have impact from various drugs/treatments administered during the disease. Others might come away with diminished organ functionality (heart/kidneys etc) that in turn stresses other systems. The "what doesn't kill you" mantra is just that. It isn't based in science. It is almost always better to avoid getting sick in the first place.
- timr 4y ago
  > For everybody or for some people? What is the causal chain? The study it is based on is from Al Aly [1], who is using a dataset of (mostly elderly, unhealthy) veterans who regularly seek hospital care from the US government hospital system (VA). It is an older, sicker population, and no, the results aren't generalizable. Moreover, his methods are dubious. I've dug into one of Al Aly's other paper's downthread [2], and the comments cross-apply. He has a bunch of papers using the same dataset and core methods, and they're all pretty bad, but the press loves them. Eric Topol is either ignorant of their problems, doesn't care, or a little of both. As an editorial aside, Eric Topol really isn't a reliable source of information. He's pretty much on par with Eric Feigl-Ding at this point. He's someone who has surrendered all former scientific credibility to sensationalism. Even if you 100% believe every word in these papers, unless you acknowledge that they're a study of older, sick people, you're sensationalizing the results and misleading the listener. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01689-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01689-3 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32671383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32671383
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lettergram 4y ago
[flagged]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
eastbound 4y ago
> stroke 4x and of heart failure more than 10x Can we have a statistical analysis for the lockdowns and curfews? Do incitations at being a couch potato have an impact on life expectancy?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by nishs 4y ago

tjr225 4y ago

musha68k 4y ago

The effects are also compounding with each re-infection.

haggy102 4y ago
Source?
- stevenrj 4y ago
  https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1749502/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1749502/v1
  - EGreg 4y ago
    "However, whether reinfection adds to the risk incurred after the first infection is not clear."
    - nishs 4y ago
      The sentence you’ve quoted, from the abstract of the paper, refers to the state of knowledge before this paper was written/published. The results section of the paper updates this knowledge. It says: “Compared to those with first infection, those with reinfection exhibited increased risk and excess burden of all-cause mortality, hospitalization, and at least one sequela in the acute phase and the post-acute phase of the reinfection.” “… the risk was higher in those who had two infections (HR 2.11 (2.07, 2.15); burden 234.58 (227.08, 241.92)), and highest in those with three or more infections (HR 3.00 (2.71, 3.31) …”
      - hackerlight 4y ago
        Hate to be that guy, but people who are susceptible to reinfection are also probably less healthy.
        bee_rider 4y ago
        I'm pretty sure everyone is susceptible to reinfection after a while.
        epgui 4y ago
        Affirmative. (biochemist)
        hackerlight 4y ago
        Susceptibility is also a spectrum, though, which is what I meant to get at and failed to communicate clearly. Immunocompromised people are probably more susceptible than others? I don't have data on that, it's just a guess.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  https://erictopol.substack.com/p/a-reinfection-red-flag https://erictopol.substack.com/p/a-reinfection-red-flag Preprint of a major study from VA data. It will probably publish in the near future and I haven't heard any major changes or revisions.
  - timr 4y ago
    This study is one of a number of different ones from the same lab (Al Aly), taking a dataset of older, sicker people (US veterans who seek hospital care at the VA), and looking at groups who had two hospital confirmed infections, vs. those with one hospital confirmed infection, vs those who went to the hospital with no confirmed infections. Per the paper's abstract: > We show that COMPARED TO PEOPLE WITH FIRST INFECTION, reinfection contributes additional risks of all-cause mortality, hospitalization, and adverse health outcomes (emphasis mine) All this paper shows is that if you follow a cohort of older, sicker people -- people who are seeking hospital care! people who were infected and possibly hospitalized in the first wave! -- long enough for them to get multiple reinfections (in this case, about 2 years, from the original Covid wave through the Omicron wave), the overall rates of a (selected) set of different health conditions goes up over time. They have not shown that the increased risk is because of Covid. The paper has no way of following the younger, healthier people (particularly in the later waves, where home testing was common) who never set foot in a VA hospital and had a Covid test, despite having Covid. There is a huge selection bias [1] problem here. There may be others, such as immortal time bias. [2] What you would like to see in a study like this is that it is prospective (the participants were selected randomly in advance and followed over time); but this study is retrospective. You would also like to see a control against a similar illness, such as flu or non-Covid pneumonia; this study does not have such a comparison (despite being trivial to make), and resorts to using "atopic dermatitis and neoplasms" as a "negative control" instead. As an aside, Al Aly has a history of using a weird grab-bag of negative control illnesses against this same dataset across his various papers. One wonders why he doesn't always use the same illness as a negative control -- presumably atopic dermatitis didn't suddenly start being unassociated with Covid between his studies, right? Would the results not be the same if he was consistent? I'm guessing not. In short, this study is confounded, and Eric Topol really needs to tone down his fear-mongering. Even if you believe the top-line results, unless you are an elderly person sick enough to be seeking regular hospital care, this has very little relevance to your risk profile. [1] https://catalogofbias.org/biases/selection-bias/ https://catalogofbias.org/biases/selection-bias/ [2] https://catalogofbias.org/biases/immortal-time-bias/ https://catalogofbias.org/biases/immortal-time-bias/
ArboriaInstitut 4y ago
Do any of the epidemiologists/virologists who are saying this offer any thoughts as to why SARS-CoV-2 and the immune response to it are so different from every other novel virus which has emerged in the past? Is there any precedent at all for "a virus which reinfects you over and over with no reduction in lethality/sequelae from the repeat infections"?
- resoluteteeth 4y ago
  What if these sequalae aren't different from other coronaviruses?
  - ArboriaInstitut 4y ago
    Then obviously something else would have to be the main cause of the bump in excess deaths that's been observed.
    - eastbound 4y ago
      Lockdowns. It’s the only coronavirus we’ve treated by asking everyone to stay home. The impact on being healthy (sports, sun exposure, happiness) is huge.
- sandworm101 4y ago
  Yes. Flu. Constant (yearly) reinfection by slightly different variants with near-similar mortality regardless of previous variant exposure.
- ajross 4y ago
  > so different from every other novel virus which has emerged in the past There's only one novel pandemic to study every century or so. I don't think there's any evidence at all that it's "so different". It's just better studied because in 1918 only a handful of scientists even knew that "viruses" existed.
  - ArboriaInstitut 4y ago
noduerme 4y ago
Has there been anything published yet as to whether this holds true controlling for which strain of covid one is reinfected with, or whether one is vaccinated? I know at least one vaccinated person who's been reinfected with no symptoms at all the second time, and only knew because they had to get tested.

zackees 4y ago

[dead]

buscoquadnary 4y ago

[flagged]

midoridensha 4y ago
A lot of people believe that mental problems are all caused by disembodied souls of people from the planet Teegeeack, brought here by Xenu of the Galactic Confederation in spacegoing DC-10s and blown up by A-bombs in Hawaii.
- syzar 4y ago
  I agree with your overall point but at this time there are, thankfully, few believers of Scientology. Hopefully at some point in the future encountering an anti-vaxer will be as rare as encountering a Scientologist.
  - faddypaddy34 4y ago
    Explain how the COVID vaccine which does not 1) Prevent becoming infected with COVID, 2) Does not prevent spreading COVID to others, 3) Does not prevent COVID symptoms is a vaccine again? Also using the CDC definition that was specifically changed because the COVID vaccine didn't meet the definition of vaccine doesn't count. Additionally how about we don't just jump to lumping huge numbers of people into out groups to feel better about ourselves and create divisiveness? Or go to Reddit where you can cheer on people dying. https://yournews.com/2022/07/11/2375584/emails-confirm-why-cdc-changed-definitions-of-vaccine-vaccinated/ https://yournews.com/2022/07/11/2375584/emails-confirm-why-c...
    - bglazer 4y ago
      Do you think the vaccine lowers the probability that a person will die from an infection?
      - faddypaddy34 4y ago
        That is not a vaccine. No one calls corticosteroids or antibiotics vaccines yet both meet the definition of lowering the probability someone will dies from an infection. So does taking care of yourself, getting exercise, eating a healthy diet, not sitting still all day, and a large swath of other things none of which are called vaccines.

dqpb 4y ago

> Covid-19 infection increases the chances of a stroke 4x and of heart failure more than 10x, among other disorders, within 12 months of infection. For everybody or for some people? What is the causal chain?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tomrod 4y ago
Off the cuff, it sounds like a reference to an assessment of a risk-adjusted population as a whole relative to pre-COVID baseline. COVID-19 does massive damage generally.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
sandworm101 4y ago
Every significant disease can have longstanding impacts. Damage is often cumulative. Actual causation can come via many routes. One person might have diminished physical fitness due to weeks/months laid up with the disease. Another might have impact from various drugs/treatments administered during the disease. Others might come away with diminished organ functionality (heart/kidneys etc) that in turn stresses other systems. The "what doesn't kill you" mantra is just that. It isn't based in science. It is almost always better to avoid getting sick in the first place.
timr 4y ago
> For everybody or for some people? What is the causal chain? The study it is based on is from Al Aly [1], who is using a dataset of (mostly elderly, unhealthy) veterans who regularly seek hospital care from the US government hospital system (VA). It is an older, sicker population, and no, the results aren't generalizable. Moreover, his methods are dubious. I've dug into one of Al Aly's other paper's downthread [2], and the comments cross-apply. He has a bunch of papers using the same dataset and core methods, and they're all pretty bad, but the press loves them. Eric Topol is either ignorant of their problems, doesn't care, or a little of both. As an editorial aside, Eric Topol really isn't a reliable source of information. He's pretty much on par with Eric Feigl-Ding at this point. He's someone who has surrendered all former scientific credibility to sensationalism. Even if you 100% believe every word in these papers, unless you acknowledge that they're a study of older, sick people, you're sensationalizing the results and misleading the listener. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01689-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01689-3 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32671383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32671383

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

lettergram 4y ago

[flagged]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

eastbound 4y ago

> stroke 4x and of heart failure more than 10x Can we have a statistical analysis for the lockdowns and curfews? Do incitations at being a couch potato have an impact on life expectancy?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]