Latest Covid 19 info

[AJLang]

How about this: People with diabetes in their 70s and 80s who had a severe case of Coronavirus, and who also had a history of high BG and who were also overweight or obese were sadly more likely to die than young people with diabetes or people without diabetes.

At least that’s what I understand from delving below the headline to see if it applied to me.

Mike not wanting to be nit picky but being under/lower weight also increased the risks as did a HBA1C 45-48 which I believe is within the NHS target range. But I’m happy to be corrected if I’m wrong because I am citing all this from memory. This is based on reading the full paper and the info in the appendices.

 

[Eddy Edson]

To me, the most pressing question would be: what's my risk of dying if I catch it. The UK data has probs with that question because (a) the infection rate for COVID-19 is pretty unclear but probably at least 10X the detected & reported cases and (b) it seems the fatality data isn't complete either.

FWIW, the Oz data doesn't have the same problems, and the infection has pretty much run its initial course by now with a handful of new cases per day and only a few still in hospital. In Oz, you can be pretty certain of these things:

- Infection rate pretty much the same for diabetics as non-diabetics. (About 5.2% of COVID-19 cases are diabetics, the same as diabetes prevalance). No surprise there.

- 6.9% of diabetic COVID-19 cases have died, versus 1.4% for the general COVID-19 population. So as a whole, diabetics 4.9X more likely to die of COVID-19 than the general pop.

In the UK, working from the first paper, the figure is 6.4X but that only includes deaths in hospital and there are other reasons as well to think the data is probably incomplete. So the real figure may well be closer to the Oz 4.9X.

Unfortunately I haven't seen any Oz analysis looking at separating out diabetes from type, age, HbA1c, BMI, CV issues etc etc. Hopefully somebody gets on to that soon - it's not rocket science if you have access to the complete records - but maybe the numbers are too small for good confidence intervals; only ~100 deaths ...

Just another thing about the NHS England papers - it surprised me that they didn't look at PAD/CAD as comorbidities, as far as I could see.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Mike not wanting to be nit picky but being under/lower weight also increased the risks as did a HBA1C 45-48 which I believe is within the NHS target range. But I’m happy to be corrected if I’m wrong because I am citing all this from memory. This is based on reading the full paper and the info in the appendices.

Yes I haven‘t really dug down into the HbA1c thing to know whether there was a current/historic association in the T1 population with Severe Hypoglycaemia, which can be particularly tricky in 70-80 age group (cardiac arrythmia etc)

I think the single biggest factor is still age?

 

[AJLang]

Yes I haven‘t really dug down into the HbA1c thing to know whether there was a current/historic association in the T1 population with Severe Hypoglycaemia, which can be particularly tricky in 70-80 age group (cardiac arrythmia etc)

I think the single biggest factor is still age?

I agree age is important but I’m not sure what the cut off point is with regard to being “older”. They’ve said about being under 40 is lower risk and then as you get older the risk increases for age. But age is just one of several additional hazard risk factors included in the findings.

 

[Jane50]

Taken from latest coverage in Guardian:


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

Do you think the government will take the advice of the scientists and ask diabetic patients to shield, it doesnt matter particularly to me, as I do not work, and practically doing this anyway, as do not go very often to the shops, and only go out for exercise a couple of times a day....if we were told to shield, I would probably still take the walks I do in quiet areas with no social contact with anybody else. But how would younger people be able to shield if they work etc, or would some just agree to work from home, and I suppose those that are self employed and work on garden maintenance, could still do that without contact with people.

 

[Jane50]

If they do this, I dont know what risk I would be in, I am 70 this year, and could shield easily, although may still want to go out for exercise in quiet areas, I also dont always have excellent HBa1C levels, although the last one wasnt bad, but the nurse thought it was a bit low at 6.5, but I gather I would be more at risk than a younger person, so would be prepared to shield if asked to do so

 

[Stitch147]

Well, I found out the reason why I haven't been furloughed, it's due to my skills!!! So I have to still continue to play dodge the customer while my company put skills over health!!!

 

[Eddy Edson]

Well, I found out the reason why I haven't been furloughed, it's due to my skills!!! So I have to still continue to play dodge the customer while my company put skills over health!!!

Sucks, Stitch