Covid and the Heart: It Spares No One – Johns Hopkins • Hacker News Board

Re: Covid and the Heart: It Spares No One – Johns Hopkins

#21

Post by vkou » Tue, Mar 22, 2022, 6:12 PM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #10

Don’t obsess over this. It’ll distract you and stress you out, which comes with its own health risks. None of us get out alive anyway. Go live as healthy a life as you can, find happiness, and help others when the opportunity presents.

You don't need to obsess over this, but you do need to remember that there has been, and continues to be a large pro-COVID faction that insists that getting everyone sick with it will be no big deal, because it only kills of people in .

They were, of course, speaking from a position of ignorance of long-term side effects, because the data wasn't yet in. It's been two years, and in many ways, the data is still not in yet.

We'll have another go-around[1] on the COVID rodeo next holiday season, if another dangerous variant emerges.

[1] Just because the news has forgotten about the virus, doesn't mean that the virus has forgotten about us. There are more daily worldwide cases right now, then there have been at any point prior to November 2021. That's a lot of opportunity for variants to mutate.

Re: Covid and the Heart: It Spares No One – Johns Hopkins

#22

Post by anamax » Tue, Mar 22, 2022, 6:13 PM UTC

Do we know whether Covid-19 is different wrt heart and other effects than other corona viruses or even flu viruses in general? For example, how is Covid-19/SARS-CoV-2 different from 2002-4's SARS-CoV-1 in this respect?

I ask because the reports of mental sluggishness for a couple of months after Covid-19 reminded me of how I felt after some previous flus.

Re: Covid and the Heart: It Spares No One – Johns Hopkins

#23

Post by exo-pla-net » Tue, Mar 22, 2022, 6:15 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #11

A more accurate headline would be "it spares 93%–97% of people," though the interview meticulously omitted almost all quantifiable information. The hazard ratios in the paper smitty1110 cited https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01689-3?s=08 are mostly 1.49–1.85, which as I understand it means that people with covid were 1½–2 times as likely to experience the condition, pericarditis or stroke or whatever, than…

False.

> We went into it thinking that [the risk] was going to be most pronounced and evident in people who smoked a lot or had diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, or some [other] risk factors. What we found is that even in people who did not have any heart problems start with, were athletic, did not have a high BMI, were not obese, did not smoke, did not have kidney disease or diabetes—even in people who were previously healthy and had no risk factors or problems with the heart—COVID-19 affected them in such a way that manifested the higher risk of heart problems than people who did not get COVID-19.

They found that even mild COVID damaged otherwise healthy people's hearts so badly that their risk for heart problems are now comparable to those of obese people.

In other words, it does damage your heart. That damage might result in a heart attack, reflected in the increased hazard ratio.

Re: Covid and the Heart: It Spares No One – Johns Hopkins

#24

Post by wrs » Tue, Mar 22, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #11

A more accurate headline would be "it spares 93%–97% of people," though the interview meticulously omitted almost all quantifiable information. The hazard ratios in the paper smitty1110 cited https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01689-3?s=08 are mostly 1.49–1.85, which as I understand it means that people with covid were 1½–2 times as likely to experience the condition, pericarditis or stroke or whatever, than…

The headline is badly phrased but I wouldn’t call it a “lie”. The intended interpretation is that significant long term risks were observed across the broad population, including otherwise healthy people. I perceive pretty widespread belief to the contrary right now, which could be dangerous for public health planning.

Re: Covid and the Heart: It Spares No One – Johns Hopkins

#25

Post by throwawaycities » Tue, Mar 22, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

There was a lot of information coming out of college athletics early on consistent with the research in this article. Young, healthy athletes that were asymptomatic showed signs of inflammation in the heart.

Since then there were follow up studies which were split in their findings. The early studies used MRI testing and suggested “high-risk” of heart damage/myocarditis in the athletes. Follow up studies tended not to use MRI, opting for testing for certain proteins associated with heart inflammation and ultra sounds and those studies found heart damage to be uncommon in the athletes.

Re: Covid and the Heart: It Spares No One – Johns Hopkins

#26

Post by andrew_ » Tue, Mar 22, 2022, 6:19 PM UTC

yosito wrote: post #17

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #14

I had chest pains for the first time in my life in 2021 and I’m in late 20’s. Doctor couldn’t find anything. Felt much better after a month. But it came back after getting a booster. I had COVID confirmed in 2020 with no such issues. For me, as far as i can tell, the chest pains are more correlated with the vaccinations. I’m rather grumpy at the idea of getting additional boosters.

I'm sorry you had that experience with vaccines. I know it won't make much difference to you personally, but the truth is that these sorts of chest pains and heart problems are far more common in immune-naive people who are infected with covid than in people who get vaccines.

Could you drop a link to some research for side effects of immune-naive infection versus vaccine? I've read the latest on the Pfizer side effects but have nothing to compare it to for immune-naive infection effects and rate of those kinds of symptoms.

Re: Covid and the Heart: It Spares No One – Johns Hopkins

#27

Post by andrew_ » Tue, Mar 22, 2022, 6:21 PM UTC

anamax wrote: post #22

Do we know whether Covid-19 is different wrt heart and other effects than other corona viruses or even flu viruses in general? For example, how is Covid-19/SARS-CoV-2 different from 2002-4's SARS-CoV-1 in this respect? I ask because the reports of mental sluggishness for a couple of months after Covid-19 reminded me of how I felt after some previous flus.

New studies are suggesting links to nerve damage as a cause for long-covid symptoms https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/long-covid-sympto...

Re: Covid and the Heart: It Spares No One – Johns Hopkins

#28

Post by smegsicle » Tue, Mar 22, 2022, 6:26 PM UTC

blueline wrote: post #5

azth wrote: post #4

What about those that took the vaccine?

> This study was done before vaccination was widely available. Is there any indication that, for example, breakthrough infections would have a different result long term? > Yes. We are [studying] this, but I think the jury is still out. We're certainly very interested in addressing that publicly as soon as we can.

neat! that first quoted line has css text-transform:uppercase in the article, so firefox copies as original, lowercase text, but chromium copies as all caps!

Re: Covid and the Heart: It Spares No One – Johns Hopkins

#29

Post by the_doctah » Tue, Mar 22, 2022, 6:27 PM UTC

exo-pla-net wrote: post #12

azth wrote: post #4

What about those that took the vaccine?

If you're referring to cases of myocarditis caused by vaccination itself, the cases are negligible: 2.3 per 100,000 [1]. Compare that with the apparent near-certainty of heart damage (and likely brain damage) if you contract COVID while being unvaccinated, and the decision to not get vaccinated is not just selfish but self-destructive. [1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2110737

Please knock it off with the "selfish" nonsense. Even if everyone got vaccinated, the virus would still get passed around. Then, when the next variant inevitably arises, and everyone's immunity wears off, we're back at square one. The anti-anti-vax crowd is just a walking meme at this point.

Re: Covid and the Heart: It Spares No One – Johns Hopkins

#30

Post by pdonis » Tue, Mar 22, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

vikingerik wrote: post #18

exo-pla-net wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're referring to cases of myocarditis caused by vaccination itself, the cases are negligible: 2.3 per 100,000 [1]. Compare that with the apparent near-certainty of heart damage (and likely brain damage) if you contract COVID while being unvaccinated, and the decision to not get vaccinated is not just selfish but self-destructive. [1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2110737

Heart damage from Covid is nothing like a "near-certainty". The vast majority don't experience it, upwards of 95% depending on the study. Framing this as "near-certainty" or "spares no one" is irresponsible fear-mongering.

The study is not saying that 95% of people who get COVID do not experience heart damage. It is only saying that 95% of people who get COVID did not have a heart-related acute event in the time period examined. That doesn't mean they had no heart damage at all. Their hearts were not directly examined.

The point of this study was to assess whether people who have had COVID are at increased risk for heart-related problems (and the conclusion was that yes, they are), not to assess what percentage of them had actual heart damage.