Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients • Hacker News Board

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#171

Post by robocat » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

bpodgursky wrote: post #151

paulsutter wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hospitalization rates for people aged 20-44 are in the range of 15% to 20%. You might want to read up on the experience of COVID-19 hospitalization before you decide that there's little risk from infection. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105402/covid-hospitaliz...

The 15-20% number is very stale. The current numbers are under 3% across that cohort: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... 0–9 years 0 13 0·00% (0·00–0·00) 10–19 years 1 50 0·0408% (0·0243–0·0832) 20–29 years 49 437 1·04% (0·622–2·13) 30–39 years 124 733 3·43% (2·04–7·00) 40–49 years 154 743 4·25% (2·53–8·68) 50–59 years 222 790 8·16% (4·86–16·7) 60–69 years 201 560 11·8% (7·01–24·0) 70–79…

More detail on above: published March 30th, the percentages are expected hospitalisations based on total population of infected (including mild/asymptomatic usually untested).

Data is from Table 3 near end of paper, table title: “Estimates of the proportion of all infections that would lead to hospitalisation, obtained from a subset of cases reported in mainland China“

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#172

Post by azemetre » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 9:46 PM UTC

graeme wrote: post #166

nradov wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you have any real scientific basis for those numbers. I doubt most people can reduce their risk of infection to 50% unless they take extreme and unsustainable steps. Please state your assumptions and show your math.

If 70% of people get it, you have a baseline risk of 30% of getting it. My assumption is that a sizeable fraction of people either: * Already got it * Don’t take hand washing seriously or do it wrong * Are bad at avoiding touching their face * Unnecessarily touch surfaces when out (i.e. door with hand, rather than sleeve/bag, whatever) * Don’t practice distancing well * Are in a job where they must interact with the…

I do nearly everything except distance well if I am forced back to work and have to take public transportation. I live in Boston and this is my fear. I avoid people now but I doubt much people can keep this sustained for 6-months.

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#173

Post by vkou » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #165

vkou wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except we are still doing all those things. Maintenance[1] is happening. Factories are working. Food is being grown. Truckers are still hauling. Read the shut down orders issued by your state. Read the list of essential jobs listed in those orders. All of those things that you listed are essential jobs, that are still being done. If your factory makes masks, you're essential. If your factory makes screws that are use…

Well, all the individual maintenance is being cancelled. Home maintenance; dentist appointments; tax accountant meetings; checkups; physical therapy. Heck even housecleaning, haircuts and sports. There will be a cost to all this - small business starts that fail across the board, loans and mortgages in default, cars repossessed, restaurants closing everywhere. Hard to get a job for most people with so many businesses…

Home Depot is still open. Plumbers, electricians, AC guys, etc., are essential businesses. Your tax accountant can work with you over the phone.

Cancelled checkups and dentist appointments are an unfortunate consequence of living with this virus. Lifting the lockdown on them may well result in more net damage to people's health at this point - but maybe not. This is one of the first things we need to think about re-opening.

Haircuts are by no means essential, and I don't understand why you threw them into the list.

The problems that arise from this aren't exactly the apocalypse porn of "There will be no food, no running water, and people will be dying in the streets, as civilization falls apart around them."

> There will be a cost to all this - small business starts that fail across the board, loans and mortgages in default, cars repossessed, restaurants closing everywhere.

This kind of economic cost is going to be paid anyways, regardless of whether we take the road of "Tens of thousands of deaths, more lockdown" or "Millions of deaths, no lockdown". People just aren't going to consume as normal in the middle of a raging pandemic. Small businesses will be falling apart, as their owner-operators get sick, and/or die. Jobs will be lost, because not enough people are crazy enough to be booking a vacation in the middle of this.

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#174

Post by koheripbal » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 9:57 PM UTC

tandr wrote: post #135

jacquesm wrote: post #86

So, I've been battling this bug for the last three weeks or so, probably caught it on the way back from my last job in Finland. I expected an empty plane instead it was packed like it was the last train out of San Fernando and everybody was scared there never would be another one. After a week or so symptoms started in spite of having self-isolated already after the flight, so that's why I figure that is where I caug…

I totally agree with your "wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy" - this is probably the worst pneumonia-flu-like sickness I went (still going?) through. I am now convinced that if I will catch it (or some mutated off-spring of this) again, I might not make it. Looks like I got it too about 3 or 4 weeks ago. No cough, no fewer, just a growing chest pain. Went to doctor back then, he prescribed antibiotics against pneu…

Covid-19 is a type of virus that does not mutate much at all. It has error correction in replication.

Across all the variants found globally so far, there have only been changes to 20 base pairs - most of which (possibly all) do absolutely nothing.

Your immunity will likely make any re-infection much much lighter - even many years from now.

Interestingly, Coronaviruses generally, can still re-infect you even after you've developed immunity (or been vaccinated) - albeit to a much lesser extent. It's one advantage they have over influenza, and why they can get away with error correction.

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#175

Post by Fjolsvith » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:06 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #170

Fjolsvith wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: Patients who had heart disease before their coronavirus infections were much more likely to show heart damage afterward. But some patients with no previous heart disease also showed signs of cardiac damage. In fact, patients with no preexisting heart conditions who incurred heart damage during their infection were more likely to die than patients with previous heart disease but no COVID-19-induced c…

That's circular logic. If patient A dies of heart failure during a covid-19 infection, you should not be concluding that the patient likely had a heart issue prior to the covid-19 infection. Sure, it might be the case, but you cannot draw any conclusion here unless you compare it to other pneumonia cases.

Your second statement undermines your first.

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#176

Post by claytongulick » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:30 PM UTC

Benmcdonald__ wrote: post #106

dcolkitt wrote: post #28

This headline is definitely a lot scarier than the actual body of the study. The most likely cause of the heart damage by far is the systemic inflammation induced by pneumonia. We know this because pneumonia patients of all types often have heart strain afterwards[1]. But that damage is very rarely permanent as the risk subsides back to baseline given enough time. Until we see evidence of heart issues in patients wit…

There are plenty of dead young people. 1 in 500 from most data. I personally wouldn't describe that as low risk

Due to the fact that there's not a good agreed upon standard as what counts as a "covid19 death", there's absolutely no way you can draw any sort of meaningful death rate.

I.e. in Connecticut, there was a "covid19 infant death". Except that infant died at home due to a horrible accident. Arrived at the hospital deceased. Postmortem, was tested and coronavirus positive, therefore was counted as "Covid19 Death" and "infant dies of coronavirus!!!" in the news.

Death rates and case numbers are terribly skewed, and the data we have is abysmal.

CDC just massively changed the definition of what a "positive" case means. PCR tests have a notorious accuracy problem, so previously the definition of a positive case was consecutive positive PCR/RT-PCR tests.

Now the definition has changed to "if any test has ever come back positive, then positive".

To be clear, this new definition means that if you test positive, then have two consecutive negative tests, you're still counted as a positive case.

Just this redefinition could account for a large part of the increases in "positive" cases we're seeing.

Couple this with allocation of funds and resources based on positive cases and death totals, and you have a situation where it's in everyone's best interest to inflate the numbers as much as possible.

We saw the same issues during HIV/AIDS "crisis".

Be very skeptical of any numbers, rates and data you're seeing. At this point, the CDC and state agencies are refusing to publish their source data (which is very strange).

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#177

Post by claytongulick » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:47 PM UTC

jpxw wrote: post #50

cowpig wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speculating about how the virus works on the internet, especially in the confident kind of tone I'm seeing in this comment section, leads people to take that speculation as fact, repeat it, and then you have misinformation spreading on an ongoing health crisis that people use to inform decisions they make in their lives which affect themselves and others. I am not a doctor myself, but I am dating one, and helped her…

There’s definitely some danger in people downplaying this virus, I totally agree. But I don’t see that happening in this comment section. I see people discussing how the virus might work, and trying to explain why these examples have been observed.

There's a possibly equal danger of exaggerating the severity of the virus, which we may be experiencing right now.

Bias towards either direction is still bias. Educated discussion and critical thought are all we can rely on.

If that leads us to the conclusion (as it has led me) that the severity of this disease has been inflated, I think that's a worthy topic of debate and evaluation. Not a taboo subject to be avoided "because someone somewhere might not take it seriously enough and then do something stupid".

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#178

Post by dharma1 » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 11:11 PM UTC

ACE2 (the entry point for the virus in the lungs) is expressed in the heart too, so it makes sense that the virus could attack the heart directly.

It could also be a side effect of chloroquine.

Frustrating how little we know at this point.

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#179

Post by 9HZZRfNlpR » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 11:17 PM UTC

stordoff wrote: post #154

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could be having panic attacks; based on the fact you've got numbers, it sounds to me like you're actively monitoring your own blood saturation, which already implies you may be worrying too much about things like that. Don't underestimate the effects of worry and stress. If it's temporary and you don't have other symptoms then you probably don't have the virus.

Incidentally, I went the other way. I somehow got fixated on my breathing[1], and "thought" (rationally I knew it was wrong, but the anxiety overrides) that I wasn't breathing enough unless I forced myself to, to the point I didn't sleep for multiple nights as I was convinced I would be in trouble if I fell asleep. Got a cheap O2 sat. meter, checked it was above ~95, even after holding my breath for tens of seconds,…

Damn I had the same thing. I'm not particularly worried about covid19 when it comes to myself personally but I felt like it was hard to breathe and I don't do it often enough. As dumb as it sounds I panicked about forgetting to breath.

It was surreal because I'm not really worried usually about my health or wellbeing, if anything I should take it more seriously. I just gasped cold air from window and skipped sleeping that night.

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#180

Post by Syntonicles » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 11:37 PM UTC

graeme wrote: post #166

nradov wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you have any real scientific basis for those numbers. I doubt most people can reduce their risk of infection to 50% unless they take extreme and unsustainable steps. Please state your assumptions and show your math.

If 70% of people get it, you have a baseline risk of 30% of getting it. My assumption is that a sizeable fraction of people either: * Already got it * Don’t take hand washing seriously or do it wrong * Are bad at avoiding touching their face * Unnecessarily touch surfaces when out (i.e. door with hand, rather than sleeve/bag, whatever) * Don’t practice distancing well * Are in a job where they must interact with the…

I'm trying to understand your numbers and I'm hung up on what may just be a coincidence. You say if 70% of people get it, you have a baseline risk of 30% of getting it.

Is that the normal way of phrasing risk? My expectation would be that there is a 30% chance of not getting it. Am I misreading your comment or is my definition of risk somehow backward?