We keep hearing about COVID-19 being especially dangerous for people with underlying medical conditions.

But, what is included in "underlying medical conditions"?

I finally came across a study that defined "underlying medical conditions", at least with respect to that particular study.

Look over the list (below) and see if you can think of anything not included.  Also consider how many people 50 and up who don't have at least one of these conditions.

And consider how many people in a long term care facility don't have an "underlying medical condition"



* Underlying medical conditions include

cardiovascular disease (congenital heart disease, coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, hypertension, cerebrovascular accident/stroke, valvular heart disease, conduction disorders or dysrhythmias, other cardiovascular disease);

diabetes mellitus;

chronic lung disease (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease/emphysema, asthma, tuberculosis, other chronic lung diseases);

immunosuppression (cancer, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, identified as being immunosuppressed);

chronic kidney disease (chronic kidney disease, end-stage renal disease, other kidney diseases);

neurologic conditions (dementia, seizure disorder, other neurologic conditions);

chronic liver disease (cirrhosis, alcoholic hepatitis, chronic liver disease, end-stage liver disease, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, other chronic liver diseases);

obesity (body mass index ≥30 kg/m2).

in Maskachusetts there is a lot of hand-wringing over "spikes" in deaths and cases (parties, cruise boats, protests, etc).

But if you look into the data, the daily death count in Maskachusetts is being driven by the number of covid-19-related deaths in long term care facilities.  The daily deaths not in LTC facilities has been below 10 each day for the past month.

But, no one will report on that... except maybe to gasp in horror that elderly people are dying.  I know it sounds cold, but in a typical year in Maskachusetts, almost 90% of those who die (from all causes) are 55 or older.

Around where I live there are a lot of disposable masks just lying on the ground... almost worse than cans and plastic bottles.

Let's put a 5 cent deposit on disposable masks and use the inevitable "revenue" to pay for cleaning up all the rubbish left by the people who can't be bothered to properly dispose of, well, everything.



(imagine, if you will, green font...)

https://www.mass.gov/governor-updates

Effective 1 August, everyone (including resident) traveling to Maskachusetts are now required to fill a Masschusetts Travel Form.  This form will be used to ensure that people are quarantining.

Effective 1 August, everyone (including residents) traveling/returning to Maskachusetts that claims to have a negative test result in lieu of quaranting must produce certification of the test result if requested.

there's more to it, but the executive order has not yet been published (it was just announced less than an hour ago)

[edit:  I get the feeling that Maskachusetts is getting like the people who have been cowering at home...]

Bypassing the CDC, the white house is now requiring data from hospitals sent directly to the white house.

<sigh>  what a stupid thing to do.

(hopefully things will continue to progress well...)

https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/moderna-announces-publication-new-england-journal-medicine

Moderna Announces Publication in The New England Journal of Medicine of Interim Results From Phase 1 Study of Its mRNA Vaccine Against COVID-19 (mRNA-1273)

Looks like Phase 3 will start on or about 27 July.

How many people currently have the COVID-19 virus?

In Maskachusetts, the testing for COVID-19 (molecular) has been yielding positives less than 3% of the time since 12 June and less than 2% since 29 June.

This is targeted testing - people potentially with covid-19 symptoms, their close contacts, and healthcare workers, etc.

I would like to see random sampling of the rest of the population to get a handle on the number of people who are asymptomatic.  However, it doesn't seem that the "leaders" want that.  Kind of like few people want to count the number of people who have recovered.

But, given the testing that is happening (which is targeted), what is the likelihood that more than 3% general population is currently infected?  (at least in Maskachusetts).