Underlying Medical Conditions and Severe Illness With COVID-19

A study published in July 2021 on the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website may prompt a rethink on how governments respond to COVID-19.¹

Ninety-five per cent of all severe COVID-19 illness in adults has been linked to pre-existing, underlying medical conditions. This study identified the most frequent and their risk for severe COVID-19 illness. The study used data from more than 800 US hospitals for patients aged 18 years or older hospitalized with COVID-19 from March 2020 through March 2021.

Of the 4,899,447 hospitalized patients in the study only 540,667 (11.0%) met the study inclusion criteria for COVID-19. Let that one sink in. We were led to believe that the hospital ICUs were overrun with COVID patients.

Of those, 94.9% had an underlying co-morbidity.

The study found essential hypertension and disorders of lipid metabolism were the most frequent underlying conditions, whereas obesity, anxiety and fear-related disorders, diabetes with complication, and chronic kidney disease (CKD) were the strongest risk factors for death among hospitalized patients with COVID-19.

Figure 1. Risk factors in hospitalised adults with severe COVID-19 from CDC study

Relative risk of death in the full model was:

• 30% higher with obesity
• 28% higher with anxiety and fear-related disorders
• 26% higher with diabetes with complication
• 21% higher with CKD
• 18% higher with neurocognitive disorders including dementia and Alzheimer’s disease
• 18% higher with COPD and bronchiectasis
• 14% higher with coronary atherosclerosis and other heart disease

It is no surprise to see hypertension and disorders of lipid metabolism, obesity and diabetes as the strongest risk factors. However, it is surprising to see anxiety included at all, let alone listed so high on the list, and higher than diabetes.

Could some of these 28% of COVID-19 deaths have been averted if the US government and its media hadn’t mounted such a well-orchestrated fear campaign waged around a virus with a less than 0.99% mortality? And it would be inappropriate to single out the US government and media alone.

Asthma was associated with a low risk of death (see Figure 1.) Researchers have speculated that lock downs and masks likely shielded people from some common triggers including seasonal pathogens.² In addition, most people diagnosed with asthma are on corticosteroids which are shown to be protective against the so-called cytokine storm associated with COVID-19. Budesonide, a commonly prescribed inhaled corticosteroid is also used to treat COVID-19.³

The percentage of the US adult population known to have 2 or more underlying medical conditions ranges from approximately 38% to 64% by state.⁴ This study found that the number of underlying medical conditions is itself a risk factor for severe disease from COVID-19.

The researchers concluded that preventing COVID-19 in populations with these underlying conditions should be a public health priority, with targeted mitigation efforts and ensuring high uptake of vaccine, when available, in these individuals and their close contacts.

Missing from their recommendations and from all government health advocates is any recommendations about how we might boost our health, natural immunity and wellbeing.

So instead of locking us all away indoors in fear, breaking up families, closing down restaurants, schools, sports facilities and theatres, isolating the sick, elderly and the dying and dismantling everything it means to be human why aren’t good nutrition, physical exercise, sleep, de-stressing techniques, protective strategies like vitamins C, D, and zinc supplementation and advice on functional breathing, promoted by our government health advocates?

When there is time to reflect on the global response to this viral outbreak there need to be some hard questions asked:

• Why are promising treatments for COVID like Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine, Budesonide, intravenous Vitamin C and Vitamin D being ignored and information about them being suppressed and censored?
• Why is the science being politicised and in many cases supressed?
• Why are highly respected medical specialists around the world who speak up about their concerns around the vaccine being censored? 
• Why are vaccine injuries not being reported on by the media?
• Why,18 months into the pandemic, is there still no consensus on the origins of the COVID-19 virus and why is there hesitancy from some sectors of the scientific community to narrow to a more focused investigation into the obvious lab origin?
• Why is the same potentially hazardous gain of function research that was being carried out in Wuhan still permitted in other labs around the world?⁵    
• Why is there no debate of the mainstream narrative in the media?  What has happened to investigative journalism?
• What role have the media, big pharma and big-tech had in this?⁶

You can read other articles here including recommendations on how to boost your natural immunity from  respiratory infections, including COVID-19.

Glenn White, 24 July 2021

References

¹ Kompaniyets L, Pennington AF, Goodman AB, Rosenblum HG, Belay B, Ko JY, et al. Underlying Medical
   Conditions and Severe Illness Among 540,667 Adults Hospitalized With COVID-19, March 2020–March
   2021. Prev Chronic Dis 2021;18:210123. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5888/pcd18.210123

² The Atlantic July 10, 2021: Doctors Might Have Been Focusing on the Wrong Asthma Triggers

³ Ramakrishnan, S et al The Lancet Volume 9, ISSUE 7, P763-772, July 01, 2021

⁴ Newman D, Tong M, Levine E, Kishore S. Prevalence of multiple chronic conditions by U.S. state and  
   territory, 2017. Plos One 2020;15(5):e0232346.

⁵ One Zero 5 Mar 2020 Swiss Scientists Have Recreated the Coronavirus in a Lab

⁶ CNBC TECH 14 Feb 2020 Facebook, Amazon, Google and more met with WHO to figure out how to stop
    coronavirus misinformation