All the doctors dying are Asian - what’s going on?

[MMXVi]

And why is nobody asking questions about this?

I’m over-invested in the answer because my sister is a doctor very much on the frontline, and we’re of Indian ethnicity. I want her to be protected and if she’s facing some sort of additional genetic, behavioural or dietary risk I want that flagged up to her and other doctors PDQ, not to mention their patients of the same ethnicity.

If I see another glib and possibly slightly racist response about BAME people being poorer and therefore more prone to underlying conditions I’ll flip my lid totally by the way. There’s a world of difference between an Asian hospital consultant on £150k in stockbrokerville and someone Asian on the breadline in an overcrowded council flat, and it isn’t helpful to lump them together in this instance.

So far, I’ve seen a thread about Vitamin D3 deficiency making darker-skinned people more susceptible to respiratory illness. That makes sense to me, and I’ve already ordered some from Amazon for my sister as well as the rest of our family.

My mother (not medically qualified) has a touching belief in the anti-inflammatory and anti-carcinogenic powers of turmeric so I’m making daal as we speak.

My dad (retired very senior doctor and the veteran of more than one pandemic) says probably multi-factorial, but as he’s currently recovering from cancer and therefore very high risk, I’m not going to make him elaborate.

Any other ideas and theories?

Anyone else concerned about why the press have neglected to mention this glaringly obvious information?

@perniciousdot Reported?

Are we not allowed to even say the word 'Asian' anymore without being accused of Racism?!?!

@perniciousdot Besides, op IS asian! 🤦🏼‍♀️🤣🙄

So possible causes are:-

1. Asian people are more likely to be doctors than non Asian
2. Asian doctors more likely to work in cities such as London and Birmingham where the level of outbreak is higher
3. Asian doctors more likely to work beyond 65.
4. Asian people more likely to have type 2 diabetes
5. Asian people more likely to have vitamin d deficiency
6. Asian people more likely to be blood type A.

Is that the main theories?

Blood group B negative/minus, white, olive skin tone just in case any medic is tracking for information. I tan fast in any amount of sun. HTH.

Surely they could look at Asian population in UK versus population in Asia who have - presumably - greater exposure to sunlight.

What about Italy?
Italy's demographics (both population and among medics specifically) are very different to the UK - it has a far smaller South-Asian population so it's not really comparable. Over 100 medics have died in Italy, most if not all white Italian, and they're mostly older males - my personal experience of London hospitals is that a high percentage of staff are of Asian origin, especially consultants, who are likely to be older males - and this would probably go a long way towards explaining the seeming discrepancy. I would be interested to see the actual figures though.

In Italy there was speculation (mostly social media drama, but then commented on in the serious media and by virologists) that Italy's non-white migrant population (mainly African not Asian) seemed underrepresented in virus admissions/deaths, and whether that was down to the BCG jab or genetics - though virologists said the most likely explanation is that it's a population which is on average younger and fitter than the average Italian.

In terms of Vitamin D, Italy has some of the highest rates of Vitamin D deficiency in Europe (as does Spain), especially among the elderly. There was a report by a senior doctor from Turin University who reported that his ICU Covid-19 patients had extremely low vitamin D levels and recommended testing and supplementation, including for medical staff (it wasn't a full research study looking at correlation/causation though, more an observational report I think). I already take Vitamin D and think it's a good idea in the circumstances and more generally, especially as it's a low-risk supplement to take.

Because they are more prone to hypertension

Reported?

Are we not allowed to even say the word 'Asian' anymore without being accused of Racism?!?!

I didn't accuse anyone of anything.

I didn't report the post.

RTFT.

Are minorities being hit hardest by coronavirus? www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52219070

Posted this morning. Interesting read

Besides, op IS asian! 🤦🏼‍♀️🤣🙄

🤦🏻‍♀️🤣🙄 right back.

Blood group A is most common in Europeans, in Asia B is more common, in Africa and South America O is more common, so not sure about the blood group theory in this instance.

I expect it's multifactorial and I'm interested in the vitamin D and BCG vaccine theories.

The NY Times article was interesting...particularly the theory of differences in speciality: bluntly, white male doctors cherry pick the mucho macho sexy fields like orthopaedic surgery and get mentored by the white men already in these jobs, and women and BAME doctors end up in the less prestigious jobs like geriatrics and GP.

Two more recent speculation re ??? Haemaglobiopathies as a possible risk factor
Things like thalassaemia

I wondered about this, not just thalassaemia but thalassaemia trait. It's common in people of Mediterranean origin as well as other BAME populations - anywhere where being a carrier has a protective effect if my memory serves me correctly

You do know that Sudan is an African country and is nowhere near Asia?
The two doctors who died last week were all Sudanese. Another was Nigerian and another was of Pakistani origin.

If you google medical research papers you will see that the following groups are predisposed to vitamin D deficiency:

• the Elderly
• Obese people
• Orthodox Jews mainly due to wearing conservative clothing (Apr 3 statistics of Covid&19 deaths in the UK - 2.5% from the Jewish community despite being only 0.3% of the population)
• BAME

In other words, the groups dying from Covid-19 match those likely to be vitamin D deficient.

According to research on another thread, Iranian people suffer from vitamin D deficiency, as do elderly people in Northern Italy and Spain. They tend to stay in during the summer and don't sit in sunshine with skin exposed.

But if the theory that having the BCG vaccine makes it six times less likely to get COVID then why isn’t that acting as a ‘protective’ factor.
Also it doesn’t seem like too many Indians in India have died (although I don’t trust the govt on their numbers).

Indians in India would get a lot more sun than here though.

Seems the whole world is Vit D deficient - we sit indoors all day then get told to wear suncream in bloody winter. In China everyone is obsessed with being pale and uses suncream, parasols and whitening products.

I once read a post on here about how someone covers their kids in suncream in March - October, but lets them go outside without it before 9am and after 5pm "for the vitamin D". Er no - that's not how it works......

The mortality rate in the Chinese was pretty low, also. Wonder how that comes into it. Would they not also be Vitamin D deficient?

I think it's probably proportional to the number of Asian doctors.

I had the BCG at school years ago. I think it only protects for ten or fifteen years.

As PP have said Asian people, including doctors, are more likely to live in cities - and it's the cities that are really suffering from Covid. I think the nurses who've sadly died have been both white and BAME. I don't think there's a genetic component to the risk factors?

Orthodox Jews mainly due to wearing conservative clothing (Apr 3 statistics of Covid&19 deaths in the UK - 2.5% from the Jewish community despite being only 0.3% of the population)

How many orthodox Jews live in rural areas or provisional towns?

This is once again about the population being disproportionately in metropolitan city areas where the outbreak is more widespread.

@PickleBottomNo3sMum

Was the 13 yo boy who died Asian? His name looked more Middle Eastern / Gulf Arab?

Chaz There's a fairly large Somali community in the area that poor boy lived. Possibly that was his background. It's exactly as RedToothBrush says. It's not the ethnicity that's a risk for Covid but where you live.

The Middle East and Arabic countries are in Asia!

@lakequeen
Yes but on ethnicity forms he wouldn’t be classed alongside someone of Indian or Pakistani descent.

People often use Asian as shorthand for ethnicity originating from the Indian subcontinent