Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Medicine United States

US Children With COVID-19 Less Likely To Be Hospitalized Than Adults, CDC Study Finds (npr.org) 100

According to a study published Monday by the CDC, people in the United States under the age of 18 are far less likely to fall ill with COVID-19 or require intensive care, compared with older Americans. NPR reports: The study looked at about 149,000 infections for which age was known that were reported in the U.S. through April 2. Of those, 2,572 were among people under the age of 18. That's less than 2% of total cases, even though that age group makes up 22% of the U.S. population. The CDC cautions that most reports of coronavirus cases among children are incomplete, which adds uncertainty to the report's specific numbers.

Relatively few children with COVID-19 ended up in the hospital, and fewer still required intensive care. But hospitalization status was known in only 29% of cases involving children. Based on the partial data analyzed in this study, between 5.7% and 20% of sick children end up in the hospital, and 2% or fewer end up in intensive care, the paper says. For adults ages 18-64, the proportion hospitalized was between 10% and 33%, and 1.4% to 4.5% required intensive care. Hospital admission was most common with children under the age of 1 or young people with underlying health conditions, the CDC report says. The study observed three deaths among the population it covered.
The authors conclude: "Because persons with asymptomatic and mild disease, including children, are likely playing a role in transmission and spread of COVID-19 in the community, social distancing and everyday preventive behaviors are recommended for persons of all ages to slow the spread of the virus, protect the health care system from being overloaded, and protect older adults and persons of any age with serious underlying medical conditions."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

US Children With COVID-19 Less Likely To Be Hospitalized Than Adults, CDC Study Finds

Comments Filter:
  • Not news (Score:5, Informative)

    by ilguido ( 1704434 ) on Wednesday April 08, 2020 @05:37AM (#59920774)
    The Chinese told us that in February. [bbc.com] Like they told us about COVID-19 mortality, infectiousness and hospitalization rate.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by buravirgil ( 137856 )

      The Chinese told us that in February Like they told us about COVID-19 mortality, infectiousness and hospitalization rate.

      ~another plant-mind

      In terms of the pathogen's character, you're correct. In terms of a contagion, the value of the article is reminding its public (a premise of its funding) children need to distance and wear masks like everyone else.

      Contagion is a word used to give emphasis to both the pathogen's characteristics and as equally to the conditions and circumstances of its hosts' behaviors to hasten or diminish a pathogen's advance.

      From 2020-March 12, A recent study of 44,672 people with confirmed covid-19 infection found th

      • I heard a bit of an intriguing theory about this Coronavirus and why old folks are really getting smashed by this, but kids are doing just fine. (Usually the two are coupled on account of both having weaker immune systems).

        Basically the first half of this is that 1) the older you get , the more likely you've endured multiple alpha-coronavirus common colds. The second half of this is 2) One of the main mechanisms this thing is using to kill people is having the immune system tear up the lungs.

        So you plug th

      • by thule ( 9041 )
        Lancet points out that closing schools didn't do much to reduce deaths (2%-4%) https://www.thelancet.com/jour... [thelancet.com]

        Reuters also has an article about the same thing: https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]

        Maybe it would have been better to keep kids away from the most vulnerable but let the infection wash over them as fast as possible while they attend school or play in the parks. Obviously kids with asthma or other issues that put them at greater risk would be excused.

        Remember flattening the curve was inten
    • Bad headline. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday April 08, 2020 @07:21AM (#59920990)

      News agencies should realize that most people will not go past the Headline.
      A headline like "US children with COVID-19 are less likely to be hospitalized than adults CDC study finds" sends the wrong message to the public. As most people won't go in further to read the article (even most don't read the Slashdot summary (Which is often a copy/paste of the first paragraph)) will think it is OK if you kids are exposed to the Virus as they will probably make it out OK. Much like when I was a kid, I was exposed to Chicken Pox (There wasn't a Vaccine for it yet) so I would get the illness at an early age because it would have given me immunity so I wouldn't catch it when I was older and it would turn from mild skin irritation to a life-threatening disease.

      The problem is Adults do not have immunity to it either. So a lot of adults can die from dealing with kids who seem healthy. As the kids are carriers and can fight off the virus much safer than adults can, so they seem fine, while adults (still at productive ages, if that matters for the heartless) can catch it and die from it.

      I would say a better headline should be like "Children can spread COVID-19 even without symptoms CDC Study finds." Because either people will get the wrong message or like the parent post. Just ignore it as we had already been told that.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by tokul ( 682258 )

      > The Chinese told us

      They also told that they had only 80k infected and 3k dead. And organized massive memorial for 3k dead in population of 1+ billion. What else they forgot to tell?

    • The Chinese told us that in February. Like they told us about COVID-19 mortality, infectiousness and hospitalization rate.

      Sure, but it's not the truth until Trump says it. Oh, and Fox says the Chinese never told us this at all, it's just fake news.

    • Yeah kind of interesting how the reasearchers in the US seem to pull studies out of their nose which had been existing for weeks and months in other regions. I saw the same results a few weeks ago in a chinese study simply by googling how much children were affected.
      Also the chinese study was quite interesting about the mortality rates in persons from 10-65...

    • our intelligence agencies (the only arm of the government that's properly funded) warned about it then, along with various epidemiologists. It was ignored.
  • by MrL0G1C ( 867445 ) on Wednesday April 08, 2020 @05:55AM (#59920790) Journal

    50% of mortalities have been in the 52 to 70 years age range, 25% below those ages and 25% above those ages.

    From a UK intensive care report based on 210 ITUs, 2000+ patients.
    More details:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
    https://www.icnarc.org/About/L... [icnarc.org]

    So our gov't advice telling over 75 year old to be completely self-isolating seems a bit off or misleading.

    • by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Wednesday April 08, 2020 @06:03AM (#59920810)
      Even that information can be a little misleading or lead to bad conclusions. Without knowing what percentages of the cases fall into those ranges, it can lead to bad assumptions and even some naive assumptions about people being equally susceptible should be defeated by basic demographics because 75% of the population is not aged 52 years or older.

      Even if you do get all of that, other important information can still be missing. One thing that I heard was that in people who were seriously affected, there was a high-prevalence of other health conditions. Diabetes, in particular, was indicated as being overrepresented in patients that were under intensive care.
      • by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        Actually the video I linked covered 'co-morbidities' - and they are no-where near as high as the media makes it look. How many people have diabetes, high-blood pressure, asthma or are over-weight? In the US and EU - most people have one or more of these.

        Around half of people in the northern hemisphere also have reduced immune effectiveness due to vitamin D deficiency.

    • by nagora ( 177841 )

      How many over-70's don't get as far as an ICU? Also - there's a lot more people in 52-70 than in 70+; about 16% Vs 8.76% of the population in the UK.

      • by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        Also - there's a lot more people in 52-70 than in 70+; about 16% Vs 8.76% of the population in the UK.

        That would indicate a fairly even spread in risk over aged 50. I think part of the reason 50-75 year olds are dying here is because the government and media place so much emphasis on the fact that COVID-19 is more dangerous to over 75s and hence under 75s are taking it less seriously, same with under 50s.

        • by nagora ( 177841 )

          Also - there's a lot more people in 52-70 than in 70+; about 16% Vs 8.76% of the population in the UK.

          That would indicate a fairly even spread in risk over aged 50. I think part of the reason 50-75 year olds are dying here is because the government and media place so much emphasis on the fact that COVID-19 is more dangerous to over 75s and hence under 75s are taking it less seriously, same with under 50s.

          It's complicated - for example, a lot of deaths in care-homes are just not being recorded properly. The UK's a bit better than Italy and Spain but even so I think we're not going to have a full statistical picture until it's all over (and not really 100% full ever, really).

          • by jabuzz ( 182671 )

            Further when it does get into care homes the results are basically devastating. A care home in Scotland with 90 beds saw 13 patients die in 7 days, and I doubt it is over yet in that home.

            I really feel for the staff, because loosing 15% of your people under your care in one week must be devastating.

    • You need a breakdown by year to be accurate as the reality isn’t a discontinuous bar graph but a smooth curve. Most of that middle is heavily skewed toward the older side. Just look at the diamond princess breakdown by age [medrxiv.org]. It is still important for older people to be more cautious, though it’s probably 65+ and not 75.
      • by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        The numbers I saw were around 3% chance of death for people in their 50s, personally I wouldn't want to chance a 1 in 30 chance of dying this year. And yes the risk gets greater as you get older but does that mean you should risk death because someone else is at greater risk of death? Compare risk of dying in a vehicle accident with risk of dying from COVID-19 if you catch it, COVID-19 is far far more deadly and 10% of people taking car journeys don't end up in hospital every year.

        • Social distancing does not reduce the lifetime chance of getting the disease, it remains a lifetime 70-80% chance. It stops hospitals from being overwhelmed because the entire population would be sick at roughly the same time. The overall fatality rate is something like 0.8-1.5% if you have the very best medicines, the very best equipment, the very best medical care. The fatality rate is around 10% with absolutely nothing at all, not so much as an inhaler. The only way to not get it eventually is to d
          • so to an extent it does, because as people it get they become immune and stop spreading it. Whereas if you don't social distance you're out there right now while everybody's a potential carrier. And that's before we talk about a vaccine, which while it's true won't be out for 12-18 months it will eventually come.

            Also that 10% gets permanent lung damage, which will likely kill you in your 50s or 60s from another acute respiratory disease you could have survived, while also making your life harder overall
    • by ivec ( 61549 )

      50% of mortalities have been in the 52 to 70 years age range, 25% below those ages and 25% above those ages.

      I've never seen anything like those numbers, and don't find then in the sources you provide.

      This study published in The Lancet shows an Infection Fatality Ratio of 3.28% for those older than 60, and 0.145% for those below 60.

      In Switzerland, the median age of people who died from COVID is 83 years old - means 50% of all deaths are at or above the age of 83.
      Out of 704 COVID deaths recorded by the Swiss Federal Institute of statistics, 467 are 80 years old or more.
      Source: https://covid-19-schweiz.bagap... [bagapps.ch]

      • by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        Fk, you're right, that's the number for critically ill not dead and the 50 to 70 age group had a better chance of surviving being critically ill that the 70+ group.

        23.6% of the 16-49 year olds died in critical care.
        45.8% of the 50-69 year olds died in critical care.
        68.1% of the 70+ group died in critical care.

    • Note, for what it's worth, that ~12% of the population is above age 70. So if they account for 25% of the mortalities, that suggests that they are twice as likely to die as the general population....
    • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      So our gov't advice telling over 75 year old to be completely self-isolating seems a bit off or misleading.

      Or there is a significant percentage of people over 75 years old living in facilities or other locations that are easy to lockdown and isolate or are already less mobile(or at the very least live alone because a spouse has died), while those under 75 are more likely to still live at home and be mobile and active. Would be more interesting to see the infection rates for these groups as opposed to the mortality rates.

    • I hate the percent metric. As it can present factual information in very misleading ways.
      A quick google search has the average life expectancy to be 78 years old

      So 25% of the population under 52. That is 52 years
      50% of the population between 52 and 70 That is 18 years
      25% of the population over 70 that is 8+ years

      Being that every year a person has a chance of dying, for the most part, you will expect to see more younger people alive then older ones. So 25% of 0-52 is much better than 25% of over 70. and

    • 50% of mortalities have been in the 52 to 70 years age range, 25% below those ages and 25% above those ages.

      I don't understand why the press is still breaking down the deaths this way. It's meaningless without knowing what percentage of the population is in those age groups. It leads people to making the mistake you just did:

      So our gov't advice telling over 75 year old to be completely self-isolating seems a bit off or misleading.

      Based on the UK census [service.gov.uk], 65.4% of the population is under age 50, 26.8% bet

  • One researcher was hospitalized when they attempted to study the spread in day care centers. Foolishly, they tried to use fluorescence to see where body fluid contamination might be and were blinded by the intensity of the light.
  • by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Wednesday April 08, 2020 @06:20AM (#59920852)

    Small children are the carriers, they have almost no symptoms, until they give you whatever creeping crud they picked up in their daycare.

  • by flyingfsck ( 986395 ) on Wednesday April 08, 2020 @06:25AM (#59920858)

    If West European and North American citizens were properly vaccinated, then Covid 19 would only have been 1/10th the problem:
    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/coronavirus-more-striking-evidence-bcg-vaccine-might-protect-against-covid-19-1.4222110

    Why no BCG vaccinations in USA:
    https://www.cdc.gov/tb/publications/factsheets/prevention/bcg.htm

    • by pahles ( 701275 )
      Tuberculosis is nearly nonexistent in Western Europe and North America and the infection rate is very low. Vaccination also has a negative side effect: the Mantoux test to test for TB will be less effective. So to state that we are not properly vaccinated is BS. The effect on Covid-19 is pure speculation at this point as more tests have to be done.
      • If you bothered to read the linked articles, then you would have learned that BCE is a generic immunization that was originally developed to fight TB, but which shows efficacy against many other infections. Fortunately I am one of the lucky people who got BCG as a baby.
    • by tokul ( 682258 )

      > If West European and North American citizens were properly vaccinated,

      So you expect people to be deliberately infected with every flu variant showing up on every season.

    • This is a correlation study. Which, does not imply causation. However, it is good for making a hypothesis. A clinical trial should be conducted based on this research.

      Perhaps countries that use this tuberculosis vaccine also have other forms of medical treatment that are more effective. Conversely, they may also have a poor medical infrastructure, and therefore don't have enough COVID-19 tests. [fivethirtyeight.com]
  • by ivec ( 61549 ) on Wednesday April 08, 2020 @06:27AM (#59920864) Homepage

    What these numbers don't take into account is the large number of infected people who may not even have any symptoms at all.

    I consider the hospitalization and death rates in this article published in The Lancet (a top medical journal) as the most plausible - as they took into account the rate of asymptomatic infections: https://www.thelancet.com/jour... [thelancet.com]
    Infection fatality ratio (= among all those infected, how many die) is: 3.28% (95% confidence interval 1.82 to 6.18) if you are 60 or more, and 0.145% (CI 0.0883-0.317) if you are less than 60.if you are 30 to 40, your likelihood of dying is less than 1/1000, and if you are less than 20, it's less than 1/20'000.
    Furthermore, most fatalities (>97-99%) are in persons who already suffer from other health conditions: lung(BPCO), heart(chronic insufficiency), liver, kidney(dialysis). So if you are a healthy young adult, chances are you are not going to die from COVID (it's very unlikely).

    In Switzerland, for instance, out of 704 deaths, the median age is 83 years old! - and the median age of all those hospitalized is 71.
    Only 4 are of the casualties are less than 50 (all over 30 years old); 16 are 50-59; and 467 are 80+. Source: https://covid-19-schweiz.bagap... [bagapps.ch] (sorry, French).

    Don't get me wrong: the disease is serious, and can knock you down completely for days or more. Also, to avoid unnecessary fatalities, we must all contribute to flattening the curve - practice social distancing, wash hands, etc. Don't panic, but be responsible. Don't fear for yourself, but take care of the elderly and other persons at risk in your community.
    Also, if you start getting serious respiratory symptoms (difficulty to catch your breath, blue lips, difficulty to get up, ...), do call for help right away and get to a hospital: you might be at risk to die without medical care, and things can turn for the worst quickly.
    COVID-19 will probably kill 2-5 times more people than seasonal flu in a bad year (e.g. seasonal flu killed over 60'000 people in the USA in winter 2017/2018).

    I do believe, however, that we are excessively infantilized, and insufficiently educated. And that we should focus more on the protection of those who are at risk, and make efforts to maintain/restore the freedoms of the others. Improving our hygiene practices is good, also, but let people live and enjoy life reasonably.

    Of course it's easy to comment and criticize here. Even though I'm pretty certain that, retrospectively, we'll find out COVID-19 isn't as bad as we made it, as a decision-maker I'd probably prefer to play it safe. And instilling fear is the more effective way to "flatten the curve" a we need to.

    • by Jarwulf ( 530523 )
      If we had a do-over and I was king of the the US and/or Europe I'd probably focus more on universal masks/gloves/handwashing, intelligent more selective quarantine, and less on arresting people for walking outside alone, fining people for sitting alone in the cars and banning threesomes but thats just me.
    • by kaur ( 1948056 )

      ... we should focus more on the protection of those who are at risk, and make efforts to maintain/restore the freedoms of the others.

      How should we protect the high-risk groups?
      Keep them in isolation... forever?
      Or till we develop a vaccine from this strain?

      I am afraid that sooner or later, the young and the healthy would say "fuck them, why should WE suffer for the lives of our elders".
      What... would happen then?

      • by ivec ( 61549 )

        Actually, protect the risk group while you let the younger generations get infected and become immune.
        Then they create a barrier to the contagion of their elders.

        But still, need to keep the curve reasonably flat...

      • then the problems would start when the old start to die. Hospitals would be completely overwhelmed. You'd see a death rate of around 20% for people over 60. Maybe higher (I've seen a few different numbers). With 73 million boomers (and about 400k above that) you'd be looking at around 14 million deaths.

        Now, the baby boomer & above generations outnumber Gen X and Millennial voters 20 to 12 (e.g. for every 20 people over 55 there are only 12 under).

        They would go to their political leaders and dema
        • by ivec ( 61549 )

          We'll see how Sweden fares in the end: they provide recommendations for hygiene and social distancing, but schools, cafés, businesses, simply remain open. But they also implement measures to help people at risk protect themselves.
          Sweden certainly isn't a dictatorial state; maybe they are just being smarter...

          • We'll see how Sweden fares in the end: they provide recommendations for hygiene and social distancing, but schools, cafés, businesses, simply remain open. But they also implement measures to help people at risk protect themselves. Sweden certainly isn't a dictatorial state; maybe they are just being smarter...

            No, Swedes are going to be demanding lockdown in 3-4 weeks at the outside, because it's already getting pretty bad and it's going to get a lot worse. Sweden is seeing constant exponential growth in cases and deaths. They have managed to maintain a lower growth rate than many other countries, but they're still at about 6% daily growth. The end conclusion will be that Sweden was dumb.

    • Whatâ(TM)s even more interesting is to compare your age group risk of dying from Covid with your baseline annual mortality risk. http://www.bandolier.org.uk/bo... [bandolier.org.uk] I think many folks (especially above 40) would be surprised how comparatively low their odds of making it through another year actually are. A lot of the Covid hysteria is driven by this belief that itâ(TM)s an anomaly if we donâ(TM)t all make it to 65-70 or something.
      • Who invited the actuary ? Worst party guests ever.

      • by ivec ( 61549 )

        You may find this graph interesting: https://ibb.co/TrBkvyS [ibb.co]
        It shows the seasonality of the death rate, for >65 year olds, in Switzerland.
        The base periodicity shows an increase of deaths in winter.
        "Grippe" means Flu, and shows the winters where a more aggressive Flu has increased mortality.
        "Canicule" means "heat wave" - during a hot summer the death rate will also increase.
        Finally, the increase of Mortality caused by COVID in this early spring shows up - for now it's not exceptional (compared to a usual

    • Of course it's easy to comment and criticize here. Even though I'm pretty certain that, retrospectively, we'll find out COVID-19 isn't as bad as we made it, as a decision-maker I'd probably prefer to play it safe. And instilling fear is the more effective way to "flatten the curve" a we need to.

      Anecdotally, I'm seeing a lot of people catching the SARS-CoV-2, going through it, and being thoroughly relieved that they only had mild symptoms. That's great for them, and I can see where they would say it's really not that bad.The public health crisis mostly comes from the shortage of ventilators, medical masks, hospital beds, and staff for the serious cases. So I guess whether this outbreak is bad or not is probably a very relative opinion - it's easy for anyone to say it isn't bad when they're not the

    • by RobinH ( 124750 )

      COVID-19 will probably kill 2-5 times more people than seasonal flu in a bad year (e.g. seasonal flu killed over 60'000 people in the USA in winter 2017/2018).

      It's important to add that it will kill 2-5 more times even with the significant efforts underway to stop the spread. I think when this is over (when we get a vaccine) only about 15 to 20% of the population will have had the virus. That's what's going to keep the number of deaths low.

      • by thule ( 9041 )
        The flattening the curve models just calculated for slowing the spread. They didn't say it would stop it. The US had about 10% of the population infected with the flu last season. We have a vaccine for the flu (it varies season to season), It seems to me that a respiratory virus like COVID-19, 10% is the low bar, 20% is easy with or without mitigation. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be much higher.
      • by ivec ( 61549 )

        The question is, why do we have to flatter the curve so much?
        Because, actually, we are much less prepared for a severe epidemic than our leaders have claimed to be.
        Lack of general awareness of hygiene best practices; lack of mask and personal protection equipment; lack of basic medications; lack of trained personnel, equipment, and infrastructure.
        Everything we have been rushing to do today were recommendations given during the the swine flu and bird flu alerts of recent years.
        We certainly could improve our

    • "I probably won't die" is GREAT except for the 1/10 chance of feeling like you might die and needing to be hospitalized, and the high proportion of those that would need a machine to breath for you.

  • File that study under N for "No Doy"
  • There have been several cases where the COVID-19 virus apparently attacks the heart. There are several cases here in Europe, from a couple of children to several healthy nurses. When this is the case, the progress is extremely rapid, from high fever to death by heart failure in only a couple of days.

    • by pahles ( 701275 )
      source?
    • With every disease you have a few cases that are completely asymptomatic and have freak side effects. Unless we're talking about something that gets into the percent area (i.e. is more than a handful cases of the million or so we have now), you can safely ignore it. More likely than not, Covid just allowed something the immune system barely kept at bay to break through when the immune system was overwhelmed that had nothing directly to do with the triggering disease.

    • Which is why it is considered far more serious of an illness then the Flu. However, in current cases where we do not have adequate medical resources to care for everyone, This puts us in an imperfect situation. Where we need to use the odds to determine who should get care and who should tough it out.
      I knew a guy who was in his early 30's who died from COVID-19 who was young and healthy. However, during a crisis he is just a demographic number where the next guy who comes in his 30's will probably get

  • I'm just wondering if there is some 6 degrees of separation for this virus? So does anyone here know anybody who has got it?

    Thanks in advance.

    • Our household had it and confirmed, one of us is a charge nurse. The only reason we could get the test was her, and she could barely get it. It was mostly fine, in our case. We kept very strict personal lockdown during the 2 week time window, but it's a little confusing at this point what we do exactly now.

      Nearly impossible to get a test to see if we're full recovered or just in the 42 day virus shed window.

      Even if we could get that test, how do you convince society to let you help out at this po

      • by MrKaos ( 858439 )

        Did she get ill with any symptoms?

        • Yes, we all did. Manifested slightly different in everyone but in line with generally listed symptoms.

          They almost wouldn't test her because by the time she went in for the test a few days later she no longer had the symptoms.

    • Yes, one who definitely had it and one who was sick with the right symptoms but was not tested.
  • While younger people feel impervious to the virus from this information which emboldens some with a Spring Break like hubris, the flip side is that they will not only lose elder relatives (and peers) in the near future, but will also be most affected in the aftermath; not just from disrupted education now, but in the potentially long drawn out economic depression -- the length and severity very much dependent on how efficiently we can stop the virus now.

    So get off my lawn and wash your hands!
  • by Curunir_wolf ( 588405 ) on Wednesday April 08, 2020 @08:56AM (#59921250) Homepage Journal

    We don't know enough yet, but could this become another one of those "childhood illnesses" - like chicken pox? Back in the day, kids didn't get vaccines for that. Often parents would intentionally take their kids for a visit to homes with kids that had the chicken pox, so they could catch it too, get through it easily with mild symptoms, and be immune from then on.

    My parents never did that, and when my son got chicken pox when I was in my 30's, so did I, and it was terrible. It was far worse than my son's case, with legions all over. When it developed in my mouth, there was a danger it could swell up my throat and kill me from suffocation.

    So it's not like COVID-19 is unique in how it affects different age groups.

    COVID-19, though, is an RNA virus, so it might mutate rather quickly, making it resistant to both vaccines and antibodies over time. Imagine if it evolves like influenza. Vaccines would have to target various strains of the virus, with targets missed each season, or it may be impossible to create an effective vaccine as it is for the common cold.

    There has also been speculation (and a couple of draft papers, which is all we have at this point) that treatment of serious cases is completely wrong. The evidence for this is the large percentage of intubated patients that die on the ventilator. Far higher in COVID-19 patients than the typical survival rate for pneumonia. Patients are intubated when their blood oxygen level falls too low as a treatment for assumed ARDS. But some doctors say what is happening is more like hypoxia (think altitude sickness). The theory is that COVID-19 is directly interfering with hemoglobin molecules in the lungs, and stripping it of its iron ions. It's not a mechanical problem, which is what the ventilator is trying to treat - it's a chemistry problem. Some doctors are suggesting trying blood transfusions as part of the treatment for serious cases - to supplement the red blood cells that have been damaged with some with functional hemoglobin.

    This also explains why we are seeing some success using drugs to treat malaria. Malaria is not a virus - it's a plasmodium. So why would these drugs work on a virus? If the virus is attacking the function of hemoglobin, similar to the way malaria feeds off the oxygen in red blood cells, it makes a kind of sense.

    Lots to learn. Everybody practice distancing and stay safe. The experts will figure this thing out.

    • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      COVID-19, though, is an RNA virus, so it might mutate rather quickly, making it resistant to both vaccines and antibodies over time. Imagine if it evolves like influenza. Vaccines would have to target various strains of the virus, with targets missed each season, or it may be impossible to create an effective vaccine as it is for the common cold.

      Fortunately, we're not seeing that [livescience.com], at least so far.

      • COVID-19, though, is an RNA virus, so it might mutate rather quickly, making it resistant to both vaccines and antibodies over time. Imagine if it evolves like influenza. Vaccines would have to target various strains of the virus, with targets missed each season, or it may be impossible to create an effective vaccine as it is for the common cold.

        Fortunately, we're not seeing that [livescience.com], at least so far.

        We're not. In fact, I've heard that even though it's an RNA virus, it actually has a mechanism to correct transcription errors! It's quite a complex little bugger. And large! Probably as large as a virus could be. The guy in that article lost me though, when he started say "think of a game of telephone." BZZZZAT!

  • Kids are super spreaders. Anyone who had kids know how this goes.

    One of two Western countries that did not close schools is Sweden (the other being Netherlands, and the UK already reversed that policy, and their prime minister ended up in the ICU).

    Now look at the kids crossing the street at 0:40 in this video [www.cbc.ca], and listen to that ugly cough.

    And epidemiological data in Canada [canada.ca] shows that the below 19 age group count only for 4.4% of total cases (not hospitalizations). How many more are sick and asymptomatic? A

  • The blood of children. I think it’s going to be very promising. It could be a game-changer. And maybe not. Based on what I see, it could be a game-changer. These children, they're very powerful. You can take the blood of children yourself, if you want. I might even try it.

A committee takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom. -- Parkinson

Working...