Just to level set for a minute on Covid. We are approaching 350K Americans dead from Covid. Of those who died 83% had some sort of comorbidity and 17% had none. Based on those percentages about 60,000 Americans without any comorbidity died from Covid. In reference to age 30% of Covid deaths were people under 60 or 105,000 deaths. So while it’s accurate to say that the vast majority of deaths or serious illness from covid happens in the elderly or people with comorbidities it’s not exclusive to those groups. Many families lost loved ones who weren’t old and/or didn’t take poor care of themselves. It’s too simple to just dismiss the risks to everyone else and place blame on people’s lifestyle choices. Most people could do a better job with taking care of themselves: eating better, exercising more, working on stress and mental health. That discussion is totally valid and I agree it’s a problem in this country, I just think Covid is a little more complicated than we should have eaten better or exercised more. I have a cousin who was in his early 30s, no major health conditions and he’s no longer with us thanks to Covid.
In patients under age 70, lung cancer conferred the highest risk of death from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
www.ajmc.com