Help me with my math?

[harllee]

I am 69 and healthy. DH is 69 and has an autoimmune disease that he has had most of his life, well controlled by medication but his doctor tells him that the disease and medication substantially increases his risk for Covid-19. Looking at all the numbers and some of the various calculators I figure that if I get the virus my chance of dying is about 5%. DH's chance of dying is about 10%. What about our chance of getting a long term disability if we get the virus? I can't find any info to calculate that number--maybe estimate my chance of dying at 5% and my chance of long term disability at 10%? For DH--his chance of dying at 10% and his chance of long term disability at 20%?

And there is my 90 year old mother. In good shape for her age, mind excellent, still drives. She has asthma, high blood pressure controlled by medication and some heart irregularities. So I figure if she gets Covid, maybe she has a 25% chance of dying, and another 25% chance of permanent damage.

All this is very awful to me. Some people would say we are all "expendable" (especially my mother) so things can get back to normal. We are all staying home and taking all precautions but we do have to go pick up groceries, go to the doctor and dentist, pharmacy etc. What else can we do? I am just hoping and praying we can stay safe until there is a good treatment and/or vaccine. If we have to get the virus I want us to be one of the last to get it rather than one of the first.

 

[ivinsfan]

harllee I don't think anyone is expendable. As far your numbers % are one thing but in fact we know if any of us get it, the variables are huge and unknown. As for life or death it's either one or the other. That is at the heart of a lot of peoples anxiety. In my mind I use numbers like you do as well. But I really know it's going be either one or other. Life or death and that's really hard to come to grips with for anyone. If we don't it get we know we can't die from it...

 

[Dtail]

The potential long term damage is not being emphasized enough, not to mention the anti vaxers (sp) down the road.

 

[harllee]

harllee I don't think anyone is expendable. As far your numbers % are one thing but in fact we know if any of us get it, the variables are huge and unknown. As for life or death it's either one or the other. That is at the heart of a lot of peoples anxiety. In my mind I use numbers like you do as well. But I really know it's going be either one or other. Life or death and that's really hard to come to grips with for anyone. If we don't it get we know we can't die from it...

Thanks ivinsfan, there is the life or death equation...but also the equation of long term disability that makes this virus even worse. And I am not seeing any estimates of the long term disability issue anywhere. My numbers on that were just a wild guess.

 

[SecondCor521]

I look at the statistics to try to understand my and DW’s risk. I suspect most on this board do the same. Therefore, most of the data reported IMHO is of little value. I want to know the death rate for those hospitalized in the last two weeks to a month. I want the early data removed. I want to know age, medical condition, and life style. I don’t want data included of a person hit by a car, dies in the hospital’s and test positive for Covid. If Covid is not a contributing cause, exclude it. Data that includes early cases when no drug or adequate treatment exist is of little interest.

I likewise try to estimate my risk.

I am a 51 year old in Idaho who is overweight but has no other health issues.

What I do is go to my state's coronavirus website and look up how many cases there are in my age group and divide that into the number of deaths in my age group. Currently that math is 4 / 1,845.

I still practice social distancing, wear a mask in public places (currently required in my county by the county health people), and do all the other basic things.

One thing I wonder about is the "Rate per 100,000" people metric on my state's website. Currently for my age group this number is 1.9. I understand it to be sort of a death rate per my sub-population. I'd like to compare this risk to my risk of death from other causes, but I'm not sure if that is reasonable to do so. I at least think I would have to roughly double that 1.9 because that seems to be the rate for my sub-population *so far*, since the death rates for other causes published by the CDC are annual rates, and this virus has only been in my state about six months. Anyone have any further information on doing this sort of comparison?

 

[ivinsfan]

Thanks ivinsfan, there is the life or death equation...but also the equation of long term disability that makes this virus even worse. And I am not seeing any estimates of the long term disability issue anywhere. My numbers on that were just a wild guess.

This will be something to follow with interest. My DH had a life altering heart surgery gone wrong two years ago. had to go on emergency by-pass, almost bled out, had his head packed in ice during a 7 hours heart surgery. Multiple shocks administered to him on the operating table.

He made it through and the fall after his surgery could work on farm harvest. Yesterday while we talking about other subjects he mentioned he actually continues to improve and he didn't realize how long and profoundly it affected him. So there is hope that time itself might bring healing to the COVID long haulers sometimes the body just needs to work on its own timeline.

 

[ILikeStarTrek]

In VA we experienced quite a run of infections early on. Looks like we peaked in cases late May with deaths peaking mid May. VA was in sad shape, but then we found that most of the deaths were in the retirement communities. I have heard that as a nation, somewhere like 60% of deaths were or are for those over 60 (includes DW and I). Other reports show different cutoff ages like 50 and 80, and I don't have convenient links to the reports I have read over past months. Also Dr Scott Gottleib who I listen to as my trusted expert has suggested that we only diagnose about 7-10% of the cases. He has suggested that with current trends by early next year we will approach heard immunity where the R number will be less than 1, that is for every person infected they will infect less than one other person. If we get a vaccine before then it could be sooner.

However, my take is that the vulnerable are older and health conditions. I'm very careful to follow mask, hand washing, distancing guidelines because there is little reason not to. Since DW and I are FIRE no downside to being careful and could be a upside of no hospital or worse. Not scared but being prudent ?

I talked about the age factor in post #10 in this thread, including a link to the CDC page with current death statistics by age. I didn't list the entire set of data in my post, but if some like yourself are not looking at the data since it's an external link, here it is.

Deaths by age from COVID-19 in US so far:
Under 1 year 9
1-4 years 8
5-14 years 14
15-24 years 157
25-34 years 844
35-44 years 2,169
45-54 years 6,021
55-64 years 14,693
65-74 years 25,268
75-84 years 32,066
85 years and over 40,125
All Ages (i.e. total of above) 121,374

Many who post on this website are likely age 55 & higher, and that's where the # deaths start to skyrocket. But for those 44 & under, as I said in my post above, the # deaths are strikingly few (relatively speaking - I believe for ages 44 & younger, it's about the same # as deaths from car accidents).

 

[SecondCor521]

Many who post on this website are likely age 55 & higher, and that's where the # deaths start to skyrocket. But for those 44 & under, as I said in my post above, the # deaths are strikingly few (relatively speaking - I believe for ages 44 & younger, it's about the same # as deaths from car accidents).

You can see the same thing on a smaller scale in Idaho:

https://public.tableau.com/profile/...!/vizhome/DPHIdahoCOVID-19Dashboard_V2/Story1

Compare "Statewide demographics" (second button on the top left) with "Death demographics" (off to the top right).

 

[RAE]

A minor correction to this: Not all those who aren't getting tested are "nonsymptomatic". A large percentage of people actually do get sick but never get tested because their symptoms are not severe. So if you combine those (nonsymptomatic who don't get tested, and mildly/moderately ill who don't get tested), you almost certainly would be talking about 10x the number who are sick enough to go get tested.

Correct, and you rarely see the media talk about this. And to take this even further, there were MANY people sick with some kind of weird virus (maybe COVID, maybe not) back in Feb/March/April who were advised by their doctors to just stay home and self-treat unless they were having trouble breathing. DW and I are two of those people. If you take all this into account, my guess is that the CDC's estimate of 10X-13X more people infected than reported is low, if anything. The virus probably started circulating in the U.S. back in December in a few places, from what I have read.

 

[rk911]

Your math is OK.

maybe. many, many of the early deaths were seasoned citizens in nursing homes, asst. living centers, etc. i believe most of the new cases are younger folks and i would expect the vast majority of them to recover (fewer % with underlying conditions, younger, healthier). if all of that is true then maybe we'll see the death-to-infected ratio drop significantly.

 

[RAE]

maybe. many, many of the early deaths were seasoned citizens in nursing homes, asst. living centers, etc. i believe most of the new cases are younger folks and i would expect the vast majority of them to recover (fewer % with underlying conditions, younger, healthier). if all of that is true then maybe we'll see the death-to-infected ratio drop significantly.

Yes, I think you are right. Of course there is still the issue of people who get pretty sick from the virus (and may have long-term issues as a result), but don't die, as others have mentioned. I do think, based on what I have read, that the percentage that fall into that category is relatively small (compared to the total number that become infected), but of course if it happens to you, that's all that matters.