Hospitalisation risk 64% higher with UK coronavirus variant: Danish study

[webfact]

Hospitalisation risk 64% higher with UK coronavirus variant: Danish study

 

FILE PHOTO: Citizens are tested for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at Arena Nord in Frederikshavn, Northern Jutland, Denmark November 7 2020. Claus Bjoern Larsen/Ritzau Scanpix/via REUTERS

 

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - A Danish study has found that people infected with a more contagious coronavirus variant first identified in Britain have a higher risk of being hospitalised, the country's Serum Institute said on Wednesday.

 

Out of 2,155 people infected with the variant codenamed B117 in the institute's study, 128 were hospitalised, a rate 64% higher than people infected with other variants, it said.

 

The result is consistent with a similar study in Britain earlier this month, the institute said in a statement.

 

The B117 variant last week became dominant in Denmark, accounting for nearly two-thirds of all new infections, up from less than 5% at the beginning of the year.

 

Denmark is a front-runner in genome sequencing being used to analyse the genetic material of the coronavirus to determine variants.

 

(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2021-02-25

 

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[sammieuk1]

They are probably right but even higher if you ain't vaccinated anyone yet ????

[nobodysfriend]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

a rate 64% higher than people infected with other variants

Vaccines appeared , so do more infective mutations of the virus ...

This virus is designed for people only .

It evolves ( mutates ) constantly in a 'race ' against the vaccinations ...

Even if the use of the vaccines helps to eradicate it completely one day , that does not mean that there won't be another one appearing after some time ... but I doubt that Covid Sars- Cov 2 will ever completely disappear , looks more like new vaccines against the mutations will need to be developed all the time ... and being given to the population ...

[spiekerjozef]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

Hospitalisation risk 64% higher with UK coronavirus variant: Danish study

What study? Aren't they supposed to stay at home?

[ukrules]

The risk of going to hospital has always been very small, it's now slightly more.

 

Even if it increased by 100% then double something very small is still very small.

[from the home of CC]

the result of runaway unchecked disease - S.A., Brazil, UK and California - huge petri dishes..

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 hour ago, ukrules said:

The risk of going to hospital has always been very small, it's now slightly more.

 

Even if it increased by 100% then double something very small is still very small.

 

Not so small:

 

"While there are many mild cases of COVID-19, about a fifth of infections result in severe disease, and nearly 1% of infected people die. For older people and those with underlying health problems, the risk of death can be anywhere from 10 to several hundred times higher."

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/02/12/all-covid-vaccines-stop-death-severe-illness-column/6709455002/

[ukrules]

10 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Not so small:

 

"While there are many mild cases of COVID-19, about a fifth of infections result in severe disease, and nearly 1% of infected people die. For older people and those with underlying health problems, the risk of death can be anywhere from 10 to several hundred times higher."

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/02/12/all-covid-vaccines-stop-death-severe-illness-column/6709455002/

 

Those figures are wildly off. Most people don't even know they have COVID, the mistake is assuming everyone who has it is tested and confirmed.

 

If 1% of those who caught it died there would be many millions more dead.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

3 hours ago, ukrules said:

 

Those figures are wildly off. Most people don't even know they have COVID, the mistake is assuming everyone who has it is tested and confirmed.

 

If 1% of those who caught it died there would be many millions more dead.

 

That's your opinion, entirely unsupported due to the fact that you haven't presented any credible evidence or sources to backup your claims...

 

I'll be the first to admit, there's a lot of uncertainty and conflicting information on the subject of CV outcomes, in part because the best info is only known about the smaller portion of CV test-confirmed cases, and far less known about the much larger universe of actual CV cases, including asymptomatic ones, that are never confirmed by test for various reasons.

 

But here are some indicators that lend support to what I posted above:

 

From the WHO:

 

"Most people with COVID-19 experience mild symptoms or moderate illness.•Approximately 10-15% of cases progress to severe disease, and about 5% become critically ill."

 

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/risk-comms-updates/update-36-long-term-symptoms.pdf?sfvrsn=5d3789a6_2

 

[As has already been noted elsewhere, those most negative outcomes skew heavily, not not exclusively, toward the older age groups.]

 

-------------------------------------------

 

A study from the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases published last November estimated that the U.S. up through the end of September had 52.9 million actual CV infections (not just the test-confirmed ones), and an estimated 2.4 million of those resulted in hospitalizations, which would be a hospitalization rate of about 4.5%.

 

 

Among the much smaller 6.9 million officially test-confirmed cases during that period, the hospitalization rate was estimated at 14% -- not surprisingly a higher number than the 4.5% estimated overall hospitalization estimate above, because it's the more seriously ill patients that typically end up getting tested and diagnosed.

 

https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1780/6000389

 

------------------------------------------------------------------

 

As for the CV fatality (IFR-Infection Fatality) rate, there have been numerous reports and studies that estimate it at around 1% for more affluent countries like the U.S. that have longer life expectancies and larger numbers of elderly. And a 1% rate would be about 10 times the estimated fatality rate of seasonal influenza.

 

"A new study conducted by researchers at Imperial College London found the COVID-19 infection fatality ratio is about 1.15% of infected people in high-income nations and 0.23% in low-income nations.

...

The infection fatality ratio (IFR) represents the proportion of deaths among all infected individuals. It is “a key statistic for estimating the burden of COVID-19 and has been continuously debated throughout the current pandemic,” the Imperial College London said in a news release.

...

The study doesn’t compare the deadliness of the coronavirus to seasonal influenza. The World Health Organization has estimated seasonal flu has a mortality rate of about 0.1%. That’s about 10 times less than the infection fatality ratio that Imperial College of London scientists found for coronavirus in high-income nations."

 

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201030/covid-19-infection-fatality-ratio-is-about-one-point-15-percent

 

-------------------------------------------------------------

 

And, as regards the comparison between CV fatality vs. influenza fatality, the U.S. had about 360,000 CV confirmed deaths during calendar year 2020, whereas annual U.S. flu deaths in the past decade have ranged between 12,000 and at most 61,000 during the past decade -- which supports the mid-range 10 times more fatal argument regarding coronavirus vs the flu.

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

 

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/past-seasons.html

 

Edited February 25, 2021 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

As stated above, there's two different things...

 

1. IFR -- Infection Fatality Rate. The IFR for COVID mean the total deaths as a proportion of ALL CV cases, including those the many that are undiagnosed / unconfirmed.

 

On that point:

 

"To work out the IFR, we need two numbers: the total number of cases and the total number of deaths. 

However, as we explain here, the total number of cases of COVID-19 is not known. That’s partly because not everyone with COVID-19 is tested.^8,9 

 

We may be able to estimate the total number of cases and use it to calculate the IFR – and researchers do this. But the total number of cases is not known, so the IFR cannot be accurately calculated. And, despite what some media reports imply, the CFR is not the same as – or, probably, even similar to – the IFR."
 

https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid#what-do-we-know-about-the-risk-of-dying-from-covid-19

 

Hence all the varying estimates, because based on available data, there's no sure way of knowing the IFR right now.

 

2. CFR -- Case Fatality Rate. That means the total CV deaths as a proportion of the known, confirmed cases, which is a much easier number to calculate, but is misleading in the overall sense because it excludes all the CV cases that are never diagnosed and confirmed.  But here's what it is for the U.S., with those stated limitations, a bit under 2% right now for the U.S. since the outset.

 

 

https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid#the-current-case-fatality-rate-of-covid-19

 

[donnacha]

1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

That's your opinion, entirely unsupported due to the fact that you haven't presented any credible evidence or sources to backup your claims

No need to “present evidence” when what he said is common sense: not everyone with Covid has been tested or is even aware they have it.

 

Also, not everyone has a load of pre-prepared text ready to paste into online discussions. 

[ukrules]

40 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

the total number of cases of COVID-19 is not known

Exactly, this is why I'm having none of it.

 

If the number of cases remains unknown (of course it does) then we will never know the fatality rate.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

9 minutes ago, ukrules said:

Exactly, this is why I'm having none of it.

 

If the number of cases remains unknown (of course it does) then we will never know the fatality rate.

 

 

It's easy to dismiss things you don't agree with, especially when you have no basis for your opinion...

 

Yes, the IFR number with precision is unknown right now, but scientists have several ways of estimating what they think it is based on extrapolating data that they do have... That's exactly what the Imperial College of London, among others, did. And their estimate is based on projections of ALL CV cases, not just the much smaller tested and confirmed tallies.

 

"A new study conducted by researchers at Imperial College London found the COVID-19 infection fatality ratio is about 1.15% of infected people in high-income nations and 0.23% in low-income nations.

...

The infection fatality ratio (IFR) represents the proportion of deaths among all infected individuals. It is “a key statistic for estimating the burden of COVID-19 and has been continuously debated throughout the current pandemic,” the Imperial College London said in a news release.

 

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201030/covid-19-infection-fatality-ratio-is-about-one-point-15-percent

 

 

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The U.S. CDC has done estimates of the likely TOTAL numbers of CV infections and hospitalizations in the U.S. -- not just the smaller proportion of confirmed cases.  Here's their findings for Feb. to Dec. 2020:

 

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html

 

If you take their estimated 4.1 million U.S. CV hospitalizations out of 83.1 million total CV infections during the period, that works out to about a 4.9% overall hospitalization rate (4.9% of all those contract CV overall end up being hospitalized). And that, not surprisingly, is pretty close to the 4.5% estimate cited above in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal study. And the 5% WHO estimate above of those with CV who become critically ill.