Who’s Really At Risk of Dying From Covid-19

[Gumby]

Our state statistics are tabulated by decade - 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, 80+. We too have seen outbreaks in the nursing homes and convalescent centers, which constitute the plurality if not the majority of deaths.

Edit to add: A news report this morning says that nursing home residents constitute 57.6% of all COVID deaths in Connecticut.



I think that particular business will be on the ropes unless and until we get a vaccine. Who would go to one of those places or send their elderly parents when they appear right now to be deathtraps?

 

[ivinsfan]

The other day I noted that a huge number of the total deaths in my state were due to older, sick people who were in convalescent centers. Often they contracted CV19 in the center. IIRC, they made up about 1/3 of the total CV19 deaths in my state.

That leads me to wonder, if the CV19 death statistics for older people (65+) are worth the paper they are printed on.

I would love to see CV19 deaths adjusted for large groups of older people housed in convalescent centers. Also I would like to see the stats more finally tuned for age. Why they lump 65 year olds in with 85 year olds is beyond me.

In our state the nursing homes deaths are running about...75%...

 

[Car-Guy]

Age Groupings of Completed CV Fatalities Investigations in my State as of today. So ~44% of the deaths are 80+ years old but it wasn't broken down by who were in nursing homes or not.

0-19 years=0
20-29 years=4
30-39 years=7
40-49 years=16
50-59 years=33
60-64 years=22
65-69 years=40
70-74 years=33
75-79 years=31
>80 years =148

 

[audreyh1]

The other day I noted that a huge number of the total deaths in my state were due to older, sick people who were in convalescent centers. Often they contracted CV19 in the center. IIRC, they made up about 1/3 of the total CV19 deaths in my state.

That leads me to wonder, if the CV19 death statistics for older people (65+) are worth the paper they are printed on.

I would love to see CV19 deaths adjusted for large groups of older people housed in convalescent centers. Also I would like to see the stats more finally tuned for age. Why they lump 65 year olds in with 85 year olds is beyond me.

I’m confused. Are you saying that if an older person was in a convalescent home and contracted CV19, and died, it shouldn’t be counted as a CV-19 death?

 

[Midpack]

Age Groupings of Completed CV Fatalities Investigations in my State as of today.


0-19 years=0
20-29 years=4
30-39 years=7
40-49 years=16
50-59 years=33
60-64 years=22
65-69 years=40
70-74 years=33
75-79 years=31
>80 years =148

Yep. Every breakdown by age I’ve seen looks a lot like this. Thanks.

 

[ivinsfan]

I’m confused. Are you saying that if an older person was in a convalescent home and contracted CV19, and died, it shouldn’t be counted as a CV-19 death?

I think he was wondering why they were lumping over 65 together . I think it would be useful to have it separated by age per decade and then also the number of deaths in NH. that's the way they have done it in my state.

Out of 343 deaths around 66 people were NOT residents of a group living situation.

 

[Nemo2]

Age Groupings of Completed CV Fatalities Investigations in my State as of today. So ~44% of the deaths are 80+ years old.


0-19 years=0
20-29 years=4
30-39 years=7
40-49 years=16
50-59 years=33
60-64 years=22
65-69 years=40
70-74 years=33
75-79 years=31
>80 years =148

I'm definitely not a math/statistics person, but it would be interesting, (and provide additional perspective), to see these numbers extrapolated to indicate what percentage of each group died, and also what percentage of the overall population does each pre-death category represent.

 

[audreyh1]

I think he was wondering why they were lumping over 65 together . I think it would be useful to have it separated by age per decade and then also the number of deaths in NH. that's the way they have done it in my state.

Out of 343 deaths around 66 people were NOT residents of a group living situation.

Georgia Dept of Health has every nursing home listed that has a case at the bottom of their main statistics page. They list number of residents, number of residents infected, number of staff infected, number of residents deaths, and the county. I occasionally scan it to see if the two counties here have any nursing home cases.

 

[JustCurious]

So what? It is the responsibility of the low-risk pool to take precautions to help reduce the risks for the high-risk pool.

But at what cost? The shutting down of our economy and the loss of 26 million jobs? And adding trillions of dollars to our national debt and giving bailouts to corporations? And suspending routine and elective medical procedures? And forcing everyone to stay home and shutting down churches and parks? The long term effects of what we are doing have not come home to roost yet. The cure should not be worse than the disease.

 

[audreyh1]

But at what cost? The shutting down of our economy and the loss of 26 million jobs?

Um, I think that was to keep our hospitals and health workers from being overrun which affects everybody.

 

[Chuckanut]

I’m confused. Are you saying that if an older person was in a convalescent home and contracted CV19, and died, it shouldn’t be counted as a CV-19 death?

Not at all. I am wondering if the large number of older people in those centers are negatively skewing the death results because the centers themselves contribute to the spread of the disease to people who would otherwise not get it if they were at home.

 

[mpeirce]

I think that particular business will be on the ropes unless and until we get a vaccine. Who would go to one of those places or send their elderly parents when they appear right now to be deathtraps?

I don't know. People mostly go to nursing homes at the end of their lives and they often die there.

From a quick internet search:

• the median length of stay in a nursing home before death was 5 months
• the average length of stay was longer at 14 months due to a small number of study participants who had very long lengths of stay
• 65% died within 1 year of nursing home admission
• 53% died within 6 months of nursing home admission

https://www.geripal.org/2010/08/length-of-stay-in-nursing-homes-at-end.html

It's not surprising at all that a new disease shows up and it rips through a vulnerable population who is going to die soon anyway.

 

[athena53]

I think that particular business will be on the ropes unless and until we get a vaccine. Who would go to one of those places or send their elderly parents when they appear right now to be deathtraps?

We are. Dad is 89 and had a stroke just before Easter. He's out of the hospital and in rehab now but needs significant assistance with dressing and bathing and is too weak to stand on his own. Muscle weakness also means he's very hard to understand, and he's got "significant brain atrophy". I live out of the area but have 3 siblings near him. They've gone above and beyond in taking Dad to doctors' visits, bringing him home for family dinners, getting him to family gatherings, etc. when he was in Independent Living and before COVID-19. I am so grateful for what they do that I cannot do from far away and I tell them that.

I do not expect anyone to bring Dad home from rehab and try to take care of him. Fortunately he has the resources that allow him to live in a good facility chosen by my niece and her husband (both work with nursing homes and hospice) instead of frantically searching for one that takes Medicaid. And you know what? If COVID-19 takes him out at this point, he's had a good, long life and there are worse ways to go.

We were blessed by Mom and Dad's early example of LBYM.

 

[6miths]

From what I can glean, 80% of the 1100 deaths in our province are in nursing home residents according to the stats. I am somewhat surprised that more information on demographics and co-morbidities is not being published but that would be unlikely to encourage the general population to do what is felt to be needed to be done.

 

[audreyh1]

Not at all. I am wondering if the large number of older people in those centers are negatively skewing the death results because the centers themselves contribute to the spread of the disease to people who would otherwise not get it if they were at home.

OK - thanks for clarifying.

Yes, I would say the group homes for the elderly are the biggest weak link we have, they are super vulnerable. It seems to spread super easily from a resident to a member of staff to other residents and other staff members. Someone here related how one nursing home got infected by a resident who had returned from a hospital visit due to a fall. The resident infected staff, who then infected other residents.

DF’s care home started allowing immediate family only to visit today, and requires all such visitors to wear masks and only visit in the residents room.

But even if an elderly person is being cared for at home, they are still vulnerable. Health care workers visit multiple patients. Their main caregivers could be exposed. If you are dependent on someone else taking care of you, you are vulnerable because you can’t isolate yourself.

 

[JustCurious]

From what I can glean, 80% of the 1100 deaths in our province are in nursing home residents according to the stats. I am somewhat surprised that more information on demographics and co-morbidities is not being published ...

Because it does not fit the narrative and the hype being pushed by the media.

 

[JustCurious]

Um, I think that was to keep our hospitals and health workers from being overrun which affects everybody.

The opposite is happening, most hospitals have an excess of beds and are losing money and laying people off...

We are experiencing an epidemic that bizarrely — and in part because of the choices of policymakers — has created a surfeit of hospital beds and an excess of doctors and nurses.
...
One reason that we didn’t want hospitals to get overrun by COVID-19 patients is that we didn’t want to crowd out everyone else needing care. But, as a deliberate choice, we’ve ended up crowding out many people needing care — even where COVID-19 surges haven’t happened and probably never will.

Drastic measures were called for when the coronavirus hit our shores and began to spread out of control, especially in urban areas particularly susceptible to the pandemic. It is understandable that we wanted hospitals to prepare for the worst, and to preserve and muster equipment necessary to safely care for infected people. Hospitals themselves can become a vector for spread of COVID-19, so keeping away people who didn’t absolutely need to show up was a reasonable impulse. But this is a case where the cure may be really worse than the disease — or at least has created its own crisis.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020...ome-hospitals-overwhelmed-many-underutilized/

Hospitals have taken huge revenue losses as they postpone elective surgeries and other routine care so they can make more staff and space available for the Covid-19 response. Some hospitals expect to lose half their income, and the top industry trade groups have warned that hundreds of hospitals could close after this crisis.

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/8/21213995/coronavirus-us-layoffs-furloughs-hospitals

 

[cathy63]

I'm definitely not a math/statistics person, but it would be interesting, (and provide additional perspective), to see these numbers extrapolated to indicate what percentage of each group died, and also what percentage of the overall population does each pre-death category represent.

I did something like that with my county's data. Our population is skewed a little younger than the U.S. averages, but I don't think that should affect the relative sizes of the bars within an age group. You're welcome to copy the spreadsheet and use it to play with data from other sources if you like.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13OsBc5gZ5LJjX8F58tRYebnUh16r2w76hWzPaddRums/edit?usp=sharing

 

[gwraigty]

But at what cost? The shutting down of our economy and the loss of 26 million jobs? And adding trillions of dollars to our national debt and giving bailouts to corporations? And suspending routine and elective medical procedures? And forcing everyone to stay home and shutting down churches and parks? The long term effects of what we are doing have not come home to roost yet. The cure should not be worse than the disease.

We're up to 30 million jobs lost now.

 

[Nemo2]

Hi Cathy: Upon further perusal, (and as I indicated previously math is not my forte...in fact I don't even have a forte), I'm not sure I understand how the number of cases in a given age group can be higher than those individuals in the age group itself......repeat cases?

What am I missing?

 

[MissMolly]

In Kentucky:

As of Sunday, Kentucky reported that 610 residents and 280 employees in 60 long-term-care facilities had tested positive for the virus. Ninety-five residents and one employee have died of COVID-19. In Kentucky overall, there have been 4,074 confirmed cases and 208 deaths.

https://www.lanereport.com/124982/2020/04/46-of-kentuckys-covid-19-deaths-in-long-term-care-facilities/

 

[Aerides]

But at what cost? The shutting down of our economy and the loss of 26 million jobs? And adding trillions of dollars to our national debt and giving bailouts to corporations? And suspending routine and elective medical procedures? And forcing everyone to stay home and shutting down churches and parks? The long term effects of what we are doing have not come home to roost yet. The cure should not be worse than the disease.

It always puzzles me when someone decides to a reply to a post in a thread from pages back, or, in this case, weeks (you quoted my 4/12 post to reply.)

So anyway, I still would say "take precautions to help reduce the risks" but I said nothing about bailouts and the national debt. I don't know how you got that from my post, but I'll try to clarify: 3 weeks after my post most states are looking to reopen, cautiously. I won't be the first to rush out, and I hope when I do that more folks are considerate to their fellow community folks, adhering to social distancing, and wearing masks, showing caring.

So what? It is the responsibility of the low-risk pool to take precautions to help reduce the risks for the high-risk pool. We are all in this together, imo.

 

[cathy63]

Hi Cathy: Upon further perusal, (and as I indicated previously math is not my forte...in fact I don't even have a forte), I'm not sure I understand how the number of cases in a given age group can be higher than those individuals in the age group itself......repeat cases?

What am I missing?

The blue bars are the expected number of cases for the age group if cases were distributed according to the population. So, age 80+ is 3.6% of the population here and if they had 3.6% of the cases, that would be 128 sick people. But they actually have 232 cases. So on the chart, the blue bar is 128 and the red bar is 232. I can't graph the actual population # vs the # that are sick because 99.9% of the overall population is not sick, so I'd have gigantic blue bars and all the other bars would be so short as to be invisible. The blue bars are really just a way to compare the shape of the population distribution with the shape of the covid-19 distribution and see how far the latter skews to the older ages.

 

[youbet]

Edit to add: A news report this morning says that nursing home residents constitute 57.6% of all COVID deaths in Connecticut.



I think that particular business will be on the ropes unless and until we get a vaccine. Who would go to one of those places or send their elderly parents when they appear right now to be deathtraps?

It will be interesting to see how people cope with this (bold mine). Adult children who have no one available to be with elderly/sick mom or dad 24X7 will be at a loss as to how to handle it. Elderly/sick folks who have no friends or family able/willing to care for them might have no place to be housed and cared for.

This could be particularly tough on folks counting on Medicaid to foot their LTC needs since Medicaid payments may increase more slowly than NH costs. NH's will be motivated to take only private pay clients. And as escalating gov't rules and regs designed to make NH's COVID-19 safer push up costs, how will LTCI polices and the companies that wrote them make out?

Yes, as you say, the NH industry may be "one the ropes," but if the industry struggles and shrinks, or becomes substantially more expensive than it already is, we're the ones that will be on the ropes.

Maybe we're on the brink of an industry that will have to be nationalized. Interesting times.

 

[Klubbie]

The opposite is happening, most hospitals have an excess of beds and are losing money and laying people off...

We are experiencing an epidemic that bizarrely — and in part because of the choices of policymakers — has created a surfeit of hospital beds and an excess of doctors and nurses.
...
One reason that we didn’t want hospitals to get overrun by COVID-19 patients is that we didn’t want to crowd out everyone else needing care. But, as a deliberate choice, we’ve ended up crowding out many people needing care — even where COVID-19 surges haven’t happened and probably never will.

Drastic measures were called for when the coronavirus hit our shores and began to spread out of control, especially in urban areas particularly susceptible to the pandemic. It is understandable that we wanted hospitals to prepare for the worst, and to preserve and muster equipment necessary to safely care for infected people. Hospitals themselves can become a vector for spread of COVID-19, so keeping away people who didn’t absolutely need to show up was a reasonable impulse. But this is a case where the cure may be really worse than the disease — or at least has created its own crisis.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020...ome-hospitals-overwhelmed-many-underutilized/

Hospitals have taken huge revenue losses as they postpone elective surgeries and other routine care so they can make more staff and space available for the Covid-19 response. Some hospitals expect to lose half their income, and the top industry trade groups have warned that hundreds of hospitals could close after this crisis.

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/8/21213995/coronavirus-us-layoffs-furloughs-hospitals

As some anecdotal evidence my wife works at one of the two largest hospitals in Columbus, OH in the PACU. Columbus is obviously not dense compared to NYC or other major metros, but it is not rural America either. It is probably the definition of "average America" or close to it.

They shut down all elective surgeries and basically everything else in order to treat COVID. They also turned the convention center here into a field hospital. My wife has said that they had two primary covid units at the hospital and one of them got more than half full but that was it.

The hospital elected to pay all employees through the pandemic even if they didn't work. Many nurses and staff sat at home and did nothing. Now the hospital is ramping back up and changing their tune to "we have to make money" and are setting more restrictive clock in/clock out guidelines. Nurses no longer get OT if they work more than 40 hours. Call in pay may have been cut too, I can't remember. The point is that the hospitals prepared to hemorrhage money for something they never happened. Since services are only starting to get ramped back up layoffs are an obvious next step if the revenue doesn't show back up. The hospital has been altruistic financially but it will only last so long.

Occupancy at her hospital is virtually empty because they shut everything down for the covid surge that never happened.

I was in favor of shutdowns when they happened in March. Now I am skeptical. The messaging was "the wave is coming". Well it seems more and more likely that there has been community spread for a while. We shut down here in Columbus in late March. Shelter in place was 3/26 I believe, but there were already covid cases in the state by then and restaurants, bars, large gatherings were banned 10 days prior to shelter in place.

What I am getting at is I keep hearing that these shelter in place and social distancing orders have stopped the spread. Maybe. But with increasing evidence of community spread before any of this went into effect I am skeptical how much they have helped. With community spread likely already out there the damage would have been done.....and I am not convinced most are following the guidelines as well as they should have anyways...just based on the observations I have seen when I have had to be out.

I don't have the answers, but I remain skeptical on how unprepared our hospitals truly would have been without any of this. We will never know and some will say better safe than sorry. I am on the fence though and look at the 30 million unemployed and industries that have been completely destroyed. The fact that some healthcare workers are at risk now of losing jobs has me scratching my head even more.