Why do so many (the majority?) of people think that covid automatically means death if you are overweight or diabetic

[ACautionaryTale]

The overwhelming risk factor of covid is age. But even in the over 80s you are still far more likely to live than die.

I’ve just read thread after thread saying it’s bad news for the overweight. No. It just raises you risk profile slightly. Hell. My bmi is 52 and I had a very mild confirmed case.

I think the media has done such a good job at scaring people shitless that the message Of the true risk is lost in the hype.

I noted on the news that they’ve changed the message. They might have done it some time ago and o only just noticed.

“X number of people have died in the U.K. after testing positive for corona”

They’ve even stopped saying people have died from it. Not saying some haven’t but I’ll bet anything a lot of those that have died did so of something else. Since they are now testing all hospital admits it’s more than likely.

The media need to take some responsibility for the shit show we are currently in

Type 1 diabetes is a different condition to type 2. The risks are far higher for Type 1 and there are very few people with Type 1 so reported deaths may look small but are in fact significant.

Please don't generalise about diabetes and risk. I am weary of it.

Also (and because today I am very angry about type 1 diabetes because it is a horrible, destructive disease) if a T1 Diabetic has a high HBA1C, they will be hit hard by Covid 19. This is because their immune system is easily overwhelmed when their blood sugars are high and all of their organs are under stress.

Please don't inadvertently tell T1 Diabetics they needn't worry. I'm glad the anti-dementors are happy bouncing around on their thread, jubilant about their risk free existence, but some of us are worried.

I’m BMI 39, think I had it in January and it was mildish.

Although I believe obesity is not exactly a positive factor for risk, I think it’s taking it a bit far to say no obese people can be treated in intensive care. That’s just not correct. Of course it’s possible to treat obese patients in ICU. 64% of the population are obese. There would be outrage if 64% of people that need ICU were denied it because they are fat.

I did a risk calculator thingy on here and despite being high BMI for my age my risk of death was something like 0.218%

Lots on MN and many in the medical profession hate fat people so are probably delighted to have yet another stick of doom to beat us fatties with.

Don’t get me wrong I’ve been concerned enough to sort myself out more than I have for years but I certainly don’t believe it’s a death sentence for me

Although I believe obesity is not exactly a positive factor for risk, I think it’s taking it a bit far to say no obese people can be treated in intensive care. That’s just not correct. Of course it’s possible to treat obese patients in ICU. 64% of the population are obese. There would be outrage if 64% of people that need ICU were denied it because they are fat.

64% of the population are overweight - only 29% are obese. But you're correct that it doesn't preclude you from intensive care. Data from ICNARC shows that if you're overweight or obese, you're more likely to require intensive care for COVID, but you're also more likely to survive it than people of a lower BMI.

@PowerslidePanda that last sentence is interesting (and weird). Do you know if the research has got as far as being able to assess the risk of obesity without any other comorbidities? Obesity, diabetes, hypertension must all be so entwined. Maybe there just hasn’t been enough people to sample, or enough time to know this yet.

Yes, it is interesting. I wonder if it might be because COVID hits older people hardest and they tend to have a lower BMI - i.e. the critically ill patients with a high BMI are younger and that's helping their survival. Having said that, the same trend is observed in critically ill pneumonia patients too - it's called the obesity paradox.

I've definitely seen a study (from France, I think) that separated out obesity from its common co-morbidities and concluded that obesity is a risk in its own right.