Announcing deaths and no underlying health conditions actual meaning.

[2boysand1princess]

I try not to check but sometimes end up reading an article where they have stated the age groups of those who have died in the last 24 hrs of covid. Occasionally it says something like: 18 died with no underlying health conditions aged 40-90
I’ve noticed that daily there’s at least one case of someone under the age of 50-60 who dies of covid but has no underlying condition.
Could that person have been obese perhaps? Would that be classed as no underlying health condition?

As far as I know obesity is an underlying condition but I couldn't say where I know that from. Obese is BMI higher than 30 as opposed to overweight (BMI over 25).

Underlying condition has to be something that normally attracts chronic treatment. Normally long-term documented treatment most often with drugs. Like Hypertension, COPD, Angina, T2 Diabetes, badly controlled asthma, dementia, bipolar etc. Obesity doesn't actually qualify as UC afaik.

They don’t class obesity as an underlying health condition. However it quite clearly is! and a lot of articles you have seen about people who have died with no underlying conditions are very overweight. We are just too PC to admit that being fat is not healthy and makes you more susceptible to other illnesses. Which is why asking people to stay indoors sitting on their backsides for months on end is so counter productive. Gyms and pools closed, takeaways open says it all really.

Right get it now. So a lot of these deaths of young people with no underlying health conditions were probably down to being extremely overweight or obese. Still very tragic.

@2boysand1princess

Right get it now. So a lot of these deaths of young people with no underlying health conditions were probably down to being extremely overweight or obese. Still very tragic.

How on earth do you draw that conclusion? Newsflash - healthy slim people can die of CV.

I wouldn’t necessarily draw that conclusion. Young, healthy people can die of covid; it’s statistically very rare but does sometimes happen (as is the case for a lot of illnesses).

Media starting to report younger people dying

Very sad to hear an 8 year old died today from covid.

I have a strong feeling some of the 'no UC' announcements are 'undiagnosed UC'. No HCP is going to go thru the careful diagnostic procedure when they have to priortise treating covid, nor will there bean autopsy afterwards to check for the unknown UC. A lot of chronic problems are undiagnosed; them being chronic means the conditions do cumulative damage over long periods but this may be totally unseen & unrecorded. This can be true for things like hypertension & T2DM.

I wouldn't be too complacent .
You dont know what they are actually classing as a health condition and I think you would be surprised at how small the number of people without any underlying health conditions actually is.
I think it's something they say flippantly and people think' oh well I'll be fine then because I dont have any health conditions. '

It's not actually underlying health conditions, I believe. It's pre-existing health conditions. These include:

Having had treatment for some mental health condition,
autism or other learning difficulties,
asthma,
chronic kidney disease,
chronic neurological disorders,
chronic lung disease,
dementia,
diabetes,
rheumatological disorders (types of arthritis and other joint conditions),
ischaemic heart disease (angina and heart attacks).

So if you have asthma, along with about 7% of the population in England, then should you die from Covid, you will be classified as having a pre-existing condition.

@titchy
I didn’t say ALL the young people that die with no underlying health conditions are due to being obese or overweight, I said a lot would be due to this.
I am aware that some could also be for no reason at all. Just like many perfectly healthy young people can die of the flu or even chicken pox.
I’m also pretty sure a small proportion may even have been due to unknown underlying health conditions too.

@Witchend

It's not actually underlying health conditions, I believe. It's pre-existing health conditions. These include:

Having had treatment for some mental health condition,
autism or other learning difficulties,
asthma,
chronic kidney disease,
chronic neurological disorders,
chronic lung disease,
dementia,
diabetes,
rheumatological disorders (types of arthritis and other joint conditions),
ischaemic heart disease (angina and heart attacks).

So if you have asthma, along with about 7% of the population in England, then should you die from Covid, you will be classified as having a pre-existing condition.

Thanks for explaining this!

I didn’t say ALL the young people that die with no underlying health conditions are due to being obese or overweight, I said a lot would be due to this.

But there's no evidence that's true at all.

@witchend thanks for that reminder. Did we ever get to the bottom on which mental health conditions were counted? I remember BCF discussing this quite a bit. As in, would a course of antidepressants 20 years ago still class you as having an UC?

Why is mental health an underlying condition?

Does is really affect how your body reacts to covid?

@2boysand1princess

Right get it now. So a lot of these deaths of young people with no underlying health conditions were probably down to being extremely overweight or obese. Still very tragic.

That’s quite an assumption with no evidence?!

@Agoodbriskwalk it's not clear whether they are saying it does affect your physical reaction to Covid.

Apparently they are conditions which are coded on NHS records so easy to cross reference.

Think the ONS reports explain, will go and look.

Also it's that they had no 'known' underlying medical conditions and in fact may have had one (or more) they didn't know about. Think of all the healthy young footballers that drop dead of a heart condition. If they had COVID and died it would say no underlying medical condition.

That's so strange, I always thought 'underlying condition' meant either 'was already very sick' or 'had something that meant they weren't sick per se but made the covid much worse'.

So a lot of these deaths of young people with no underlying health conditions were probably down to being extremely overweight or obese

Why does it matter? Even very over weight and obese people have friends and families who care about them.

That’s quite a dose of ‘othering’ you’ve got yourself there. Horrible.

@Isthatitnow

So a lot of these deaths of young people with no underlying health conditions were probably down to being extremely overweight or obese

Why does it matter? Even very over weight and obese people have friends and families who care about them.

That’s quite a dose of ‘othering’ you’ve got yourself there. Horrible.

Oh shut up. I never once said it doesn’t matter. Why would you try to find something in my posts to make a big deal over? Why not look at it positively? If it was proven that being obese or overweight is the cause of deaths in younger otherwise healthy people then it’s raising awareness isn’t it? Gives others a chance to either try and get to a healthy weight if possible or take extra precautions if not currently doing so until they receive the vaccine. Ffs

AgoodBriskWalk. I think that's a common misconception.

In our family we nearly all have something that "counts". Autism, depression, asthma, eczema etc. None of us were expecting to die in the next 30 years...

@Honeybobbin

Are you trying to convince yourself that you won't die from this? Because you might. You probably won't, but there's no guarantees. I might too, but I'll take comfort in the fact that you've said it's 'still very tragic' even though I'm a disgraceful fatty.

I’ve had covid. I had no symptoms and the only symptom I did have I put down to being pregnant and severely anaemic (tired). I wouldn’t have known, but before my c section they did a covid test which they repeated as I couldn’t believe I had covid.

I wasn’t asking to convince myself of anything, I was asking as a general query simply because my local paper has recently been including numbers of those dying that had no underlying health conditions and the age groups they belonged to.

@RememberSelfCompassion

AgoodBriskWalk. I think that's a common misconception.

In our family we nearly all have something that "counts". Autism, depression, asthma, eczema etc. None of us were expecting to die in the next 30 years...

I have asthma. Well had asthma as a child but can sometimes have a mild dose when I get a nasty cold, however I didn’t have any issues with it when I had covid. Not even a cough.