Latest Covid 19 info

[Bruce Stephens]

He had been put onto a covid19 ward even though he tested negative!

I don't doubt it happens. I'm sure virtually any combination of stupid things will be happening, but I'm sure it's not policy (it would be bad for the diabetes teams in hospitals, since surely they'd usually be working in the green zones and would want to minimise their use of serious PPE).

If someone tested negative but had some (probably poorly specified) set of symptoms (which might include ketones at what we'd normally regard as not high BG) they might consider a negative coronavirus test as likely to be a false negative. (False negatives are apparently not uncommon, especially early or late.)

 

[Amity Island]

I don't doubt it happens. I'm sure virtually any combination of stupid things will be happening, but I'm sure it's not policy (it would be bad for the diabetes teams in hospitals, since surely they'd usually be working in the green zones and would want to minimise their use of serious PPE).

If someone tested negative but had some (probably poorly specified) set of symptoms (which might include ketones at what we'd normally regard as not high BG) they might consider a negative coronavirus test as likely to be a false negative. (False negatives are apparently not uncommon, especially early or late.)

Thanks for your reply. It would be interesting to find out how many covid19 negative patients are put onto covid19 positive wards. Actually, not interesting but a must know statistic!

btw The chap didn't go into hospital with high blood sugars.

 

[Rickardo]

I’m very disappointed with Diabetes UK for not being more challenging to the policy makers after hearing the tragic news today that 26% of those who have died in hospital have Diabetes. We are meant to be being led by the science, early in March it had already been established in other countries that people with Diabetes were at high risk yet the DUK advice was that they agreed with the govt approach of not shielding people with diabetes. The WHO were also saying people with Diabetes are high risk (and still are).

 

[DavidG89]

New to the forum so hello to everyone. Type 1 for 15 years. BG well controlled at 43 or 6.1%. 31 years of age, bit overweight, however fit and generally healthy. I emailed my consultant about this very matter and in turn her response was that she pointed me towards a French study known as the Coronado Study, prior to one coming out in the UK. This study was published in early May re hospital admissions regarding diabetics in France. The French study (Coronado study) showed that older age, the presence of vascular complications, obesity and obstructive sleep apnoea increased the risk of poor outcomes. There was no difference with various diabetes treatments (insulin or oral agents) so there doesn’t seem to be an increased risk with type 1 but rather those of older age, obesity and more complications. https://diabetologia-journal.org/covid-19-original-research/ I am only posting from my own personal experience today and in no way am I claiming to have the answer to the question or my consultant either. Just thought this may be helpful to someone to look at an example out with the UK. Thanks

 

[DavidG89]

On the above point I have also emailed one of the authors of the study in France to clarify a few points

 

[Keith McMillan]

This scared the life out of me this evening. Being the wrong side of 60 doesn't help either. This comes after Boris has been trying to get people back into work for certain industries. I have to say that the possibility of starving due to job loss will be a better way to go than chancing it with getting COVID at work. The anxiety caused to sufferers who are called "vulnerable" who are not pigeon holed as "extremely vulnerable" is immense. For goodness sake we are either vulnerable or not vulnerable at all! 😡

 

[DavidG89]

This scared the life out of me this evening. Being the wrong side of 60 doesn't help either. This comes after Boris has been trying to get people back into work for certain industries. I have to say that the possibility of starving due to job loss will be a better way to go than chancing it with getting COVID at work. The anxiety caused to sufferers who are called "vulnerable" who are not pigeon holed as "extremely vulnerable" is immense. For goodness sake we are either vulnerable or not vulnerable at all! 😡

Yes the anxiety is very real. I suppose it will just have to be a one answer fits all approach until significant research is done, (which will take months perhaps years) to determine what factors with diabetics elevate risk? Maybe age, control of blood sugar, weight, smoker, drinker, complications in other areas of the body all come into play. Main thing is too look after yourself as best you can and keep healthy.

 

[trophywench]

That's precisely why Diabetes UK and Partha Kar himself, have requested much more info about the 'ones with diabetes'.

It's like I said on the forum earlier - what if most of those 1-in-4 were all over 80, and been resident in nursing homes for a good many years because of their other co-mobidities? Cos they could be, as easily as not.

So - don't panic, yet anyway, Captain Mainwaring!

 

[AndBreathe]

Please, don't forget that at any given time, in England, one in four (i.e. 25%) of all hospital beds will be occupied by people living with diabetes.

As well as more granular information on the diabetes statement, I would be curious to know what percentage of the 25% they quote knew they were living with diabetes at the time of admission to hospital.

It appears from my reading that COVID can, in some, lead to significantly increased insulin resistance, which in turn can lead to elevated blood glucose numbers.

At this point in time, personally, I think it is an inconvenient piece of useless information. Whilst more extreme, it feels like they might as well have published that the vast majority of those succumbing to COVID in our hospitals had 2 legs.

Please don't think I am tricialing COVID, or people's concerns, but data is only useful when it is robust, understood, and where there is a willingness to take action on unpalatable findings.

Now, if someone could just help me down from my hobby horse, I'd be grateful. 🙂

 

[Docb]

At this point in time, personally, I think it is an inconvenient piece of useless information. Whilst more extreme, it feels like they might as well have published that the vast majority of those succumbing to COVID in our hospitals had 2 legs.

Please don't think I am tricialing COVID, or people's concerns, but data is only useful when it is robust, understood, and where there is a willingness to take action on unpalatable findings.

Now, if someone could just help me down from my hobby horse, I'd be grateful. 🙂

I'm not going to help you off your hobby horse, I'm going to get on it with you.

Like you I find the shouting about poorly understood early data as if it is proven fact very unhelpful. The people doing this either don't understand, or choose to ignore, the worry they cause.

 

[catsaregreat]

Taken from latest coverage in Guardian:


Follow up statement from Bridget Turner, director of policy at Diabetes UK:

I find it incredible that Diabetes UK, who are meant to be the voice of diabetics in the UK, are not doing more to highlight the risks of contracting Covid 19 for diabetics.
Many people who are diabetic will shortly be asked to return to work, because they are only ‘vulnerable! Not ‘highly vulnerable’ and so are not shielded.
Evidence from around the world shows that the top 3 comorbidities for Coronavirus are: High blood pressure, Obesity, Diabetes.
If I can find that out without ‘further research’ it’s unbelievable that Diabetes UK can’t confirm the same without ‘months, possibly years’ of further research.
It seems clear Diabetes UK has lost its way, and no longer cares about the people it purports to represent.

Sent from my iPad

 

[Cazzablanca]

I'm sorry, but what are Diabetes UK doing to deal with / validate this statistic?
I expected a questionnaire in the early phase of this epidemic asking how every Diabetes sufferer was dealing with the lock down, because without knowing whether people are self isolating in spite of government/ Diabetes UK recommendation, or carrying on, following government advice, the information would be valuable.
To give my example, my son (Type 1) is a critical worker but was lucky enough to have an understanding employer who said he could have unpaid leave for as long as he wanted, so has self isolated for the last 8 weeks (as has the whole household to protect him). Had he not done that the 25% hospital death rate may have been influenced minutely. How many other people are doing the same?
Diabetes UK may be putting pressure (apparently) on getting things sorted, but I have no faith they are ahead of the curve (which I expected they would be) so I am cancelling my monthly donation from today

I have isolated since March but unfortunately because we as diabetics are not "extremely vulnerable" and have not received a letter, my husband has had to return to the motor plant where he works.
We are trying our best to maintain distance at home but I fear it will not be enough.

 

[Cazzablanca]

I’m in my 70’s and type 1. No other medical conditions and well controlled. I’m very anxious after hearing this on the news. I know I’m more at risk with being older but I keep myself fit and healthy. I’m worried now in case they say we have to be ‘shielded’ . At the moment I just take exercise with my dogs twice a day in a quiet area. Im a carer for my husband who has dementia and just can’t be stuck in the house all day. I hope they look into it further and realise that they can’t just ‘lump’ all diabetics into one bracket. They shouldn’t just throw it out there without looking into it further. We are anxious enough as it is.

But a lot of us need the letter to stop us, or our partners having to go to work when we don't have sympathetic employers.

 

[Robin]

Evidence from around the world shows that the top 3 comorbidities for Coronavirus are: High blood pressure, Obesity, Diabetes.
If I can find that out without ‘further research’ it’s unbelievable that Diabetes UK can’t confirm the same without ‘months, possibly years’ of further research.

What you’ve found are the raw figures. What Diabetes UK is saying, I think, is that looking behind those raw figures to see the nuances of which sort of Diabetes, and whether it’s those with Diabetes AND something who are most affected.
I would have been angry if Diabetes UK had campaigned for all people with diabetes to be on the shielded list. GPs have the power to put people on the list if they feel they have specific problems that make them clinically extremely vulnerable, and this includes people with diabetes, say, with complications or other comorbidities. But I don’t want to be locked up for having well controlled diabetes whilst otherwise being fit and healthy.

 

[silentsquirrel]

Evidence from around the world shows that the top 3 comorbidities for Coronavirus are: High blood pressure, Obesity, Diabetes.

I would expect that high blood pressure and diabetes were among the top comorbidities for death among the elderly before coronavirus, and the vast majority of deaths from the virus are among the elderly.

 

[Keith McMillan]

The fire of anxiety has been doused with petrol for people asked to return to work living with diabetes after the survival rate figure on BBC last night. Working with data myself I agree that it needs to be put into context. But I also know how easy and fast it would be for the government to act on the data they already have. Rather than act inhumanely by sending the vulnerable back out to work now, surely they could have done this based on health conditions using data analysis of survival rates per condition. Even better would be to act on the health professional's advice given on the BBC Question time and wait until the virus has largely been kicked into touch! The app will kick in soon, tests available for all are coming nearer, a vaccine test soon. I understand the economy needs to get going but surely a return to work and schools at this point is much too soon.

 

[Docb]

I find it incredible that Diabetes UK, who are meant to be the voice of diabetics in the UK, are not doing more to highlight the risks of contracting Covid 19 for diabetics.
Many people who are diabetic will shortly be asked to return to work, because they are only ‘vulnerable! Not ‘highly vulnerable’ and so are not shielded.
Evidence from around the world shows that the top 3 comorbidities for Coronavirus are: High blood pressure, Obesity, Diabetes.
If I can find that out without ‘further research’ it’s unbelievable that Diabetes UK can’t confirm the same without ‘months, possibly years’ of further research.
It seems clear Diabetes UK has lost its way, and no longer cares about the people it purports to represent.

Sent from my iPad

I am not surprised that Diabetes UK are "not doing more to highlight the risks of contracting Covid 19 for diabetics." They have a real problem in sorting out effect of diabetes (if there is one), from the effect of age (pretty sure there is one) and the effect of obesity (looks more and more as if there is one) and all the other things that come along. Also, they know that diabetes is a broad church, from people whose systems are badly upset by the condition to those who are only mildly affected and from those whose diabetes is well controlled to those for whom it is not. Coming out with broad statements will only finish up with everybody with diabetes thinking that that the have the same risk as those with the highest risk, and that is not the case.

Take me, I am 74 (bad point), man (not good point), not obese (good point) and have well controlled diabetes. I would be very annoyed if somebody told me to go into purdah simply because of the diabetes diagnosis.

 

[Stitch147]

I've been working right through the lockdown, I work in a supermarket. It can be difficult some days to social distance, if thats the case I find other jobs to do that puts me out of the way, it's not always easy. Am I worried about the latest news that has come out, not really. It needs to be broken down more. Apart from diabetes and being overweight I'm fairly fit and healthy. I'll be carrying on the same way that I have been until I'm told otherwise.

 

[Becka]

Unfortunately the data (which is a breakdown of hospital deaths in England) does not combine multiple data sets, so does not include pre-existing conditions by age. However it reveals the following:

Of those aged 60–79: 9,346 died (38.7% of all deaths) of which 8,723 had pre-existing conditions.
Of those aged 80+: 12,710 (52.6% of all deaths) of which 12,140 had pre-existing conditions.
Of those previously diagnosed with diabetes: 5,873 died (26.3% of all deaths)

Unless diabetes somehow acts to protect older people from the virus, there would have to be a large overlap between those diabetic deaths and older people.

Assuming a linear scale, which would be an extremely conservative estimate as diabetes prevalence increases with age, it would reduce diabetic deaths to 12.5% of those under 80, and to only 2.3% of those under 60. This being because 91.3% of those who died were 60 or other, and 91.3% of 5,873 deaths is 5,362.

That is obviously no substitute for actual data, but to me it suggests there is no cause for increased worry at this time. We already knew diabetes was a risk factor but not one which makes people "clinically extremely vulnerable." Reading the data, rather than poorly written media reports which provide no context, suggests that nothing has changed.

Note: deaths by age are given to May 13th and by pre-existing condition are to May 12th.
Source: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statisti...-19-total-announced-deaths-14-May-2020-2.xlsx


Mind, I am more concerned about the lack of detail around chronic pulmonary disease deaths as it does not state how active those diseases were at time of admission.

I am being shielded because I am immunosuppressed for a rheumatological disorder (3.2% of deaths) but I also have a pulmonary disease (14.6%) which may or may not be in remission, and I am autistic (1.9%) as well as being diabetic.

So now I am wondering whether I need to build a blanket fort inside of a tent pitched in the living room of my flat, then staying in there until this all goes away.

 

[Keith McMillan]

So many people with conditions still working with little or no protection, and no legal protection. Also hospital cleaners not treated as equals with doctors and nurses, yet in direct contact with the virus left in wards.