Does anyone know anybody who has been keto & died from Covid-19?


#122

Thought they were transferring people from a general hospital to one of the but not sure. I know the London hospital only had 50 people in it earlier in the year.


(Ethan) #123

It actually is a crisis at this time for those regions near capacity. This is the time when influenza rates rise, and it is common for many ICU beds to be used later in the winter by flu patients. For the areas near capacity now, further increase in Covid will breach capacity soon. Those and other regions are likely to be breach capacity as influenza rates rise through this season. The flu rates are very low at the moment, but they usually peak January-March. Do we have capacity for that?


(GINA ) #124

If we have a flu season. The southern hemisphere apparently didn’t:

Scientific American


(Ethan) #125

We don’t know. But why risk it? We aren’t distancing here. It’s likely we will have some flu, but maybe weakened


(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #126

Another opinion on the Johns Hopkins article and takedown. If you disagree don’t waste your time telling me. The article is on a website with a public comment section, tell the author.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #127

So, if I’m understanding the logic correctly, there are more deaths than expected, but the fact that the percentage of deaths by the elderly has remained unchanged means that these extra deaths are not a problem?


(Ethan) #128

Looks to me like the piece is saying that deaths are the same before as during Covid. As Covid deaths go up, non-Covid deaths go down. The piece posits that this is because what would have been a death before is being classified as a Covid death now due to a coincidental Covid infection. What is ignored is that other causes of deaths could also be due to changes in behavior that decrease their likelihood.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #129

If that is what the piece is saying, that graph of percentages does not support that point. A graph of absolute numbers compared with the previous year’s absolute numbers might make the point more successfully. But since deaths are actually higher this year than last, I don’t see how the author of the piece can maintain that deaths have not increased. I believe that the increase shows up in the death rate per capita, as well, because these additional deaths are not due to population increase.


(Ethan) #130

It’s a poorly organized piece and thus hard to get the point being made. The graph is saying that older people don’t make up a larger share of deaths this year vs normal. It doesn’t say anything about whether more people—old or young—are dying this year in absolute terms or per capita. So it sounds like the theory is that old people are dying at the same rate relative to the general population dying, but the expectation was that older people would die more often because Covid kills them. Again, this says nothing about death rates per capita or even nominally. You can’t conclude that because older people are dying at the same historical rate relative to the rest of the population, there is a flat death rate. It’s entirely possible that deaths in all age groups have increased. It’s also possible that older people are dying of Covid and less from other things, such as accidents, but overall deaths are up


(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #131

This is a very thorough explanation of how ‘cause of death’ is determined. It’s not as simple as you may think.

Of note:

Covid-19, the illness caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, is shortening the lives of thousands in the United States and around the world. One blessing is that it is mostly shortening the lives of those who have already had a life[1] – as opposed to stealing the entire lives of our children and young people.

Public health organizations have valid reasons for counting “All Deaths Involving Covid-19” using their own internal definitions, which are suitable for epidemiological studies and research when combined with all the other information being collected to produce that statistic. That statistic, created with their surveillance and epidemiological definitions, is not suitable for release to the general public without a long and complicated explanation – releasing just the number, and labeling it as Covid-19 Deaths is a form of misinformation.

  1. This might seem like a cruel and ignorant statement until you think about it. Please do. If you’d like to know if and by how much you have ‘beaten the odds’ in the game of life go to the following and just put your mouse over the bottom horizontal line immediately above your birth year. For example, my ‘Life Expectancy at Birth’ in 1945 was 64.71 years. At 75 and 5 months, I’ve beaten my odds by more than 11 years. Were I to die tomorrow I would have ‘already had a life’ and in fact a life that turned out to be 16.5% longer than expected when I was born. Far better that COVID take me than a child or young adult with most of his or her life and its potential still ahead.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #132

Thanks, Ethan, that makes sense.


(GINA ) #133

This does make a lot of sense. Yes, it is horrible to lose anyone, but imagine if this was a disease that targeted children- like polio. I can’t imagine living through that worry like my grandmothers did. My mom caught polio when she was 4. Her case was ‘mild’… only a few weeks in the hospital and partial paralysis of her face. Imagine what we would be doing right now if Coivd affected children like that.


(Ethan) #134

I thought it about it more and pulled out what I think is an interesting nugget also. The argument the piece made is that the elderly share of overall deaths has remained the same. If we also know that deaths have actually increased, then this means that actual deaths among younger people have ALSO increased at the SAME RATE as with elderly. In other words, while COVID is killing more of the older population than younger population, it is increasing the death rate of BOTH GROUPS by the SAME PERCENT!


(Joey) #135

Don’t get me wrong: I’m on this keto forum because I take my good health seriously. And questions about comorbidity are of interest. But I wonder how significant the answers are to “whether or not people are dying from COVID-19?” …

If someone has a pre-existing condition making them more vulnerable to death by COVID-19, does this mean they died from the comorbidity, not the coronavirus?

We’re all vulnerable to some degree (even “perfect health” leaves us challenged to reestablish homeostasis in the face of a health shock). Comorbidity = higher vulnerability. Absent that shock, a pre-existing condition is not inherently a death sentence - any more than life itself is a death sentence.

@amwassil I’ve always enjoyed your thought-provoking posts - even when I disagree. So please don’t send us off somewhere else to respond to the thoughts you post here.

If you truly don’t want to hear responses to your posts, perhaps you should reconsider the wisdom of posting? :face_with_hand_over_mouth: [I’d prefer that you continue … and also respect the responses you receive.]


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #136

The science fiction writer Robert Heinlein has one of his characters make the point that “in the end, all deaths can be described as heart failure.” And in The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight (Jimmy Breslin), the narrator tells us that a character died of “natural causes—his heart naturally stopped beating when the knife went through it.”


(Joey) #137

Spoiler alert: Life is a terminal condition. :vulcan_salute:


(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #138

@SomeGuy Thanks for you vote of support. I don’t mind folks debating me about my own opinions, claims and conclusions. I generally indicate quite clearly what’s mine and what’s not. Usually such debate prompts me to explore the topic further. I just think it’s not productive to argue with me about someone else’s opinions, claims and conclusions just because I thought them relevant and linked to them.


(Joey) #139

Fair enough. I mistook the external link you shared as a position you’d accepted. My weak assumption. :+1:


(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #140

(Joey) #141

@amwassil While there are some interesting clickbait links in the article posted above, it’s hard to take this source - “Lockdown Sceptics” - as an unbiased outlet for credible information. On the plus side, at least their bias is worn on their sleeve.

However, in following the article’s sources, i.e., Youtube videos and links to non-peer-reviewed articles, I found little to inspire confidence. Alas.