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Almost third of UK Covid hospital patients readmitted within four months

theguardian.com

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Re: Almost third of UK Covid hospital patients readmitted within four months

#111

Post by rriepe »

jaybrendansmith wrote: post #43

Long Covid is real. I had a mild case back in August, but it took around 5 months to feel 'normal' again. Lots of inexplicable things: Minor heart palpitations, feeling of 'heaviness' behind my breastbone. When I exercised, even moderately like running a half mile, I would feel strangely exhausted for many hours later. All of this has gone away now, but I can easily see how someone who is hospitalized could have a re…

Maybe get your iron checked out? I have iron issues (overload) and noticed the spike after Covid was really intense. If your 'heaviness' is on the right side it could be liver swelling. All cold/flu will give you a spike like this because your body absorbs all the iron from the cells that died. It throws off your balance of circulating/stored iron for a while. Normal people won't notice it but if you have iron issues you will. But this is just a guess too, I am also not a doctor.

Re: Almost third of UK Covid hospital patients readmitted within four months

#112

Post by AshWolfy »

skipwalker wrote: post #75
mdoms wrote: post #66

The only reason you've had to endure this for over a year is because you never once tried to do it properly. 6 weeks of hard (proper) lockdown followed by sensible plans to manage outbreaks and boom you'd have been done. But no, Americans absolutely refuse to work together, to pull in the same direction, to achieve something.

I'm sorry but I think this is hogwash. The idea that America could function for 6 weeks in a lockdown to the level described to actually stop the transmission, by the time transmission started, is not plausible to me, and I imagine many others. This would have entailed no one working at grocery stores, no deliveries, no travel, no global trade. I just don't buy that this was ever plausible for however long people sug…

We love to say something isnt possible, while other countries do what we just said isnt possible.

Re: Almost third of UK Covid hospital patients readmitted within four months

#113

Post by Someone »

surfpel wrote: post #17
peytn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth mentioning that the control group wasn’t matched for hospital admission status, while the study group was solely people who ended up in the hospital. I’m guessing that the authors likely could have acquired the data to match a control group of people who had been admitted to the hospital, so I’d be curious to see what the results would’ve been there. According to the paper, this control group was picked because…

The most useful result here is to isolate the impact of covid hospital admission status on the probability of mortality, not the difference between covid and other hospitalizations.

That’s the number this study went for, but it also is a number that doesn’t tell us anything about whether the increased chance of hospitalization and increased death rate are due to COVID, due to the first hospitalization, or due to those being hospitalized in the first place already being weaker than the general population.

I wouldn’t call it the most useful one.

If those who were admitted to a hospital with COVID already were less healthy than those who weren’t before they got COVID (and that’s a given. Higher lung capacity can keep you out of the hospital, for example), I don’t think it is a surprise they still aren’t as healthy when they leave the hospital.

Re: Almost third of UK Covid hospital patients readmitted within four months

#114

Post by timr »

mattmanser wrote: post #109
timr wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I now personally know over a dozen people (ranging from mid-20s up through upper 40s) who have had Covid-19. All had minor illness and are now fine. Which is not to say that others do not have lingering symptoms -- but if we're going to emphasize scary anecdotes, it seems like we should spend proportional time reporting the vastly larger number of anecdotes that are not scary, as well?

Ok, but the UK has a large, integrated, health care system, with an office of national statistics that is following the disease and published this data. It also talks about how poorer people, and those from non-white backgrounds are disproportionately likely to have worse outcomes. Just because you don't see it happening in your circles, doesn't mean it's not happening in other ones. The authors write in the BMJ: “Th…

> Ok, but the UK has a large, integrated, health care system, with an office of national statistics that is following the disease and published this data.

Having an office of national statistics does not mean that this particular paper is being reported correctly by the mass media, it doesn't mean that the paper itself supports the discussion of "long covid" amongst otherwise healthy people, and it certainly doesn't mean that other people on this thread reporting personal stories are representative of the actual risk. That last bit is what I'm emphasizing here. Literally any scary anecdote is amplified, and the (many more) pedestrian anecdotes go undiscussed.

As other comments on this page have noted, there are a number of legitimate criticisms of this paper that should be considered carefully, and even if you don't agree with those, the paper is self-admittedly discussing a predominantly elderly, sick population who were hospitalized for the virus. It doesn't generalize to discussion of anecdotes of "long covid" from much healthier people.

> It also talks about how poorer people, and those from non-white backgrounds are disproportionately likely to have worse outcomes. Just because you don't see it happening in your circles, doesn't mean it's not happening in other ones.

You're making assumptions.

Re: Almost third of UK Covid hospital patients readmitted within four months

#115

Post by Florin_Andrei »

timr wrote: post #102
bserge wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll just add my own experience. I had almost no symptoms, no cough, no taste loss, not even sniffles. Likely infection date 15th of February. PCR test on the 24th of February. No symptoms at that point. 2 days later, I started feeling more tired than usual. The next day I had a mild fever and was sweating more than usual when exercising. This lasted 3 days, after which I only felt the fatigue for another 5 days. No…

I now personally know over a dozen people (ranging from mid-20s up through upper 40s) who have had Covid-19. All had minor illness and are now fine. Which is not to say that others do not have lingering symptoms -- but if we're going to emphasize scary anecdotes, it seems like we should spend proportional time reporting the vastly larger number of anecdotes that are not scary, as well?

We know that a majority of cases are asymptomatic or have minor symptoms. That's not news.

But the weird long-COVID cases are problematic - they're real, they affect a certain slice of the demographics, and can be pretty serious and long-term.

Re: Almost third of UK Covid hospital patients readmitted within four months

#116

Post by goddess33 »

mdoms wrote: post #66

The only reason you've had to endure this for over a year is because you never once tried to do it properly. 6 weeks of hard (proper) lockdown followed by sensible plans to manage outbreaks and boom you'd have been done. But no, Americans absolutely refuse to work together, to pull in the same direction, to achieve something.

nationalistic flamebait is not welcome on HN, dang will likely remove this.

Re: Almost third of UK Covid hospital patients readmitted within four months

#117

Post by b3kart »

krona wrote: post #104
b3kart wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Evidence to the contrary is welcome You understand the burden of proof is on the person who's making a claim, not on people who disagree with the claim? I've too suffered being stuck at home for more than a year, but in my book this is still better than me or somebody else getting sick with god-only-knows what long term complications, which we don't have data for one way or another, and won't for some time still.

> You understand the burden of proof is on the person who's making a claim, not on people who disagree with the claim? Interesting idea, but false in this case unless you are arguing that lockdowns are and will be, in perpetuity, the status quo. > this is still better than me or somebody else getting sick with god-only-knows what long term complications, which we don't have data for one way or another Are you arguing…

> unless you are arguing that lockdowns are and will be, in perpetuity, the status quo

I am not arguing either way, what I am saying is shouting "here's what I think, prove me wrong" is not how it works. "Here's what I think, and here is the evidence" is how it works.

Lack of data can't support any claim. If we don't have good data on whether lockdowns are effective, it doesn't mean they aren't. It means we don't know. In which case we do a risk analysis, taking our uncertainty and potential benefits/drawbacks into account.

> Are you arguing your presence in society is outweighed by the mere possibility of you having a negative effect on it?

I don't consider myself absent from society. I am talking to you now, am I not? And yes, I consider my temporary suffering to be outweighed by potentially permanent suffering of myself or someone else.

Re: Almost third of UK Covid hospital patients readmitted within four months

#118

Post by Florin_Andrei »

gxqoz wrote: post #21
Tarsul wrote: post #5

what I find to be even more astonishing: "and about one in eight had died", so 1/8 of those who were in hospital for covid AND discharged afterwards, died within 4 months. We also had another article in the guardian that said that 1 million of people in the UK suffer from long covid ("Symptoms vary but include fatigue, muscle pain and difficulty concentrating."): https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/01/long-c…

I've seen some pushback that a lot of hard-to-diagnose chronic syndromes are now being deemed "long covid." My assumption is that at least some of this is happening as it's the trendiest disease of the moment. Not to say there aren't a lot of people with clear-cut long covid syndromes.

> I've seen some pushback that a lot of hard-to-diagnose chronic syndromes are now being deemed "long covid." My assumption is that at least some of this is happening as it's the trendiest disease of the moment.

The "pushbacks" you see on social media are essentially the output of a random sentence generator. Covid is not real, covid escaped from a lab, covid is a conspiracy, etc. etc.

Be careful with that stuff. You are what you read (and believe).

Re: Almost third of UK Covid hospital patients readmitted within four months

#119

Post by JulianMorrison »

sprkwd wrote: post #41
JulianMorrison wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like there's an overlap with post-viral syndromes and chronic fatigue syndrome, pointing to a common etiology under the hood.

It would be nice if this helped research in to chronic fatigue conditions.

I strongly suspect it will.

Re: Almost third of UK Covid hospital patients readmitted within four months

#120

Post by klyrs »

bserge wrote: post #93
jaybrendansmith wrote: post #43

Long Covid is real. I had a mild case back in August, but it took around 5 months to feel 'normal' again. Lots of inexplicable things: Minor heart palpitations, feeling of 'heaviness' behind my breastbone. When I exercised, even moderately like running a half mile, I would feel strangely exhausted for many hours later. All of this has gone away now, but I can easily see how someone who is hospitalized could have a re…

I'll just add my own experience. I had almost no symptoms, no cough, no taste loss, not even sniffles. Likely infection date 15th of February. PCR test on the 24th of February. No symptoms at that point. 2 days later, I started feeling more tired than usual. The next day I had a mild fever and was sweating more than usual when exercising. This lasted 3 days, after which I only felt the fatigue for another 5 days. No…

So... you weren't hospitalized, and also weren't readmitted to the hospital? What's the purpose of this anecdote?
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