Fascinating co-morbidity data from NYS

[jon-nyc]

Hypertension leads the list. COPD lower than I would have thought.

Of course you'd have to compare these to their prevalence in society to see which ones are 'disproportionately linked' or actual risk factors.

https://covid19tracker.health.ny.gov/views/NYS-COVID19-Tracker/NYSDOHCOVID-19Tracker-Fatalities?%253Aembed=yes&%253Atoolbar=no&%3AisGuestRedirectFromVizportal=y&%3Aembed=y

[George K]

I've seen several threads on Twitter and elsewhere saying that COVID-19 is not really a pulmonary disease, but a generalized infection (see Jolly's thread about cardiac involvement).

You have to understand that ARDS is a non-specific pulmonary response to multiple injuries (shock, infection, etc). The lung is a pretty stupid organ and can only respond in so many ways.

If this virus is causing vascular injury to which the lung is responding, it's not surprising that hypertension can have a higher mortality.

[Klaus]

@jon-nyc said in Fascinating co-morbidity data from NYS:

Of course you'd have to compare these to their prevalence in society to see which ones are 'disproportionately linked' or actual risk factors.

Indeed. I was thinking that particularly when I saw the numbers on dementia. I'd suggest that age is a confounding variable that influences both COVID-19 mortality and dementia.

[jon-nyc]

Yeah absolutely. I've always wondered how much comorbidities actually matter, or if it's more just the case that old people usually have some.

[Aqua Letifer]

Huh. COPD that low on the list?

[Mik]

I wonder how they are defining hypertension. Is it uncontrolled hypertension, does controlled hypertension reduce the risk, is it because of the increased angiotensin receptors in folks who take ACE or ARB medications, what? Kind of vague.

[Klaus]

@George-K recently asked a similar question.

My completely uninformed guess would be that it doesn't matter much whether the hypertension is controlled in that moment but rather how much damage the uncontrolled hypertension has done in the past.

[Loki]

Fascinating for sure.

[George K]

@jon-nyc said in Fascinating co-morbidity data from NYS:

https://covid19tracker.health.ny.gov/views/NYS-COVID19-Tracker/NYSDOHCOVID-19Tracker-Fatalities?%3Aembed=yes&%3Atoolbar=no&%3AisGuestRedirectFromVizportal=y&%3Aembed=y

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.120.317134

Conclusions: Among hospitalized COVID-19 patients with hypertension, inpatient use of ACEI/ARB was associated with lower risk of all-cause mortality compared with ACEI/ARB non-users. While study interpretation needs to consider the potential for residual confounders, it is unlikely that in-hospital use of ACEI/ARB was associated with an increased mortality risk.

[jon-nyc]

That’s good.