Latest PHE report on COVID

[Docb]

There is much in the news this morning about COVID and obesity, some of it leaving you with the impression that if you are obese, you will get COVID and die. It is based on a recent PHE report which comprehensively reviews lots of studies and is an important paper when it comes to working out the implications of COVID on health policy.

I have had a quick read and was taken by the following paragraph, copied directly from the report:-

However, there are limitations in the current evidence base linking weight status to COVID-19 (outlined earlier in this section) which means that only tentative conclusions can be drawn. A key limitation in terms of the analyses conducted included those who have had tests in hospitals. At this time, it is not possible to be sure if it is excess weight that is directly causing the reported increased risk of COVID-19 for patients who are living with overweight or obesity compared with those of a healthier weight, or another factor not taken into account, or identified, in the currently published studies. There are a number of limitations in the evidence to date, including sampling and testing strategies, unequal exposure to COVID-19, sample sizes and limited number of COVID-19 infections. Further research is needed, including more systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

I wish all these people leaping for the airwaves would read stuff fully rather than just work out how they can get a headline to support their own prejudices. Obesity is clearly a factor in COVID but where it stands in the list of factors is still unclear.

 

[SB2015]

Thanks for highlighting this @Docb
As you say the search for the headlines limits the detailed reading.
This seems to say, we don’t know yet. Which is not a surprise.

 

[Amity Island]

I wish all these people leaping for the airwaves would read stuff fully rather than just work out how they can get a headline to support their own prejudices.

Me too, I'm seeing this all the time!

This strategy (to deliberately and intentionally mislead) is primarily the cause of the mass fear and anxiety people are unnecessarily suffering from minute to minute, day to day. Things are bad enough, without making people suffer more than they already are.

The fact is, there are 7.8 billion people on this planet of which to date 640k have died from covid19. Globally (without real physical boundaries), that simply equates to a very low chance of dying from covid19. It's fairly obvious, that this risk does not warrant the level of fear that is seen, even more so now cases have dropped substantially.

 

[trophywench]

Yeah - and the amount of financial hardship and associated 'side-effect' problems it is still causing and will continue to cause worldwide is utterly out of proportion.

I am no more fatalistic aged 70 than what I was aged approx 10 when I discussed world problems with my dad asking him if it was my imagination that was informing me that natural disasters only seemed to happen in over populated parts of the world, even in Biblical times, did plagues of locusts or similar ever do much damage to either crops or people eg in the middle of the Sahara desert?

The world IS over populated generally. You can't just shift some of the folk to lesser populated areas since the latter don't have any means to support them, hence why they are underpopulated in the first place. Whilst there were an awful lot of things that Chairman Mao did which I couldn't agree with - perhaps limiting couples to max 2 children wasn't such a bad idea ....... Sending Foreign Aid to wherever and thereby saving babies dying from lack of food and water etc is interfering with the natural scheme of things. Even taking the Hippocratic Oath does not bar a person from using their own judgment on a case plus surely the very principle of it is more than adequately defined by the modern words, 'First, do no harm'.

 

[Docb]

@Amity Island, I am more worried that a lot of the misuse of the "science" is not deliberate and intended to mislead. Its more to do with incompetence and people seeing what they want to see rather than seeing what is there. Add a measure of people trying to be clever and you get all sorts of nonsense broadcast.

 

[Bloden]

In our house we call it “beating people with the fat stick” and it makes our blood boil. The media love a scapegoat as well as peddling half-truths or bad science. Grrrr. 😡

 

[Amity Island]

@Amity Island, I am more worried that a lot of the misuse of the "science" is not deliberate and intended to mislead. Its more to do with incompetence and people seeing what they want to see rather than seeing what is there. Add a measure of people trying to be clever and you get all sorts of nonsense broadcast.

Hi DocB,

I've also noticed a similar theme in the "viral shedding" headlines. No mention that viral shedding is not an indication of transmission. People are getting the impression that just because one tests positive for covid19 or has covid19 this doesn't mean you are transmitting.

There is a fundamental difference between an active and an inactive virus.

Viral shedding doesn't mean viral transmission.

"A positive RT-PCR result does not necessarily represent potential for viral transmission as this mode of testing cannot distinguish between infective virus and inactive virus and amount of viral RNA detected does not necessarily indicate greater infectivity".

SARS-CoV-2: The viral shedding vs infectivity dilemma

Since December 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has infected over four million people worldwide. There are multiple …

www.sciencedirect.com

 

[Docb]

Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that this virus is not a problem. It is nasty and something that nobody should catch if they can avoid it and well deserves its designation as a notifiable disease. The involvement of PR companies for almost any cause under the sun trying to find angles to exploit just does not help the process of dealing with it. It is not helped by 24 hour media always wanting to "move the story on" and continually looking for stuff to fill their programmes with.

 

[Eddy Edson]

There is much in the news this morning about COVID and obesity, some of it leaving you with the impression that if you are obese, you will get COVID and die. It is based on a recent PHE report which comprehensively reviews lots of studies and is an important paper when it comes to working out the implications of COVID on health policy.

I have had a quick read and was taken by the following paragraph, copied directly from the report:-

However, there are limitations in the current evidence base linking weight status to COVID-19 (outlined earlier in this section) which means that only tentative conclusions can be drawn. A key limitation in terms of the analyses conducted included those who have had tests in hospitals. At this time, it is not possible to be sure if it is excess weight that is directly causing the reported increased risk of COVID-19 for patients who are living with overweight or obesity compared with those of a healthier weight, or another factor not taken into account, or identified, in the currently published studies. There are a number of limitations in the evidence to date, including sampling and testing strategies, unequal exposure to COVID-19, sample sizes and limited number of COVID-19 infections. Further research is needed, including more systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

I wish all these people leaping for the airwaves would read stuff fully rather than just work out how they can get a headline to support their own prejudices. Obesity is clearly a factor in COVID but where it stands in the list of factors is still unclear.

That quote is speaking to the uncertainty about whether being obese increases the risk of *catching* COVID. The evidence for obesity being associated with worse outcomes (if you do catch it), is pretty clear.

 

[mikeyB]

Nobody knows how many overweight and obese folk have not been tested, but have had coronavirus with no lasting effect. So we may know the relative risk, but we have no idea what the absolute risk is.

 

[Amity Island]

Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that this virus is not a problem. It is nasty and something that nobody should catch if they can avoid it and well deserves its designation as a notifiable disease. The involvement of PR companies for almost any cause under the sun trying to find angles to exploit just does not help the process of dealing with it. It is not helped by 24 hour media always wanting to "move the story on" and continually looking for stuff to fill their programmes with.

Same for me too. I am of the same opinion. Some people are not accepting any of the other official evidence that shows there may be some hope. It's almost like they want it to be as bad as the headlines and won't accept anything less.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

I saw Jonathan Valabjhi being interviewed this morning about the rolling-out of self referral to the T2 prevention programme , and was very pleased that he was concentrating on what he described as ‘modifiable and unmodifiable risk factors’ in terms of the link between weight and T2 risk, plus also poorer outcomes from a serious case of c19.

It felt like he was being careful not to use stigmatising language, which was a great relief!

 

[Docb]

Agree with that @Eddy Edson and @mikeyB has got it right. I doubt few of those pontificating on safety and risk understand that relative and absolute safety are very different things and you need to be clear what you mean when using those terms.

If there is one question I would have liked Starmer to ask Johnson in PMQ's it would be....

You have repeatedly said that it it is safe for pupils to return to school. In that context, how would you define safe?

Bet he would get some world class gibberish in answer to that.