ICU full of young people

[Sleeplessinsaltend]

I keep hearing from people on here that ICU is full of young people, if we unlock then the wards will be full of 30/40 year olds. Looking at this it seems not to be the case.

Average age in ICU has dropped to 58 -the data can be found via the data thread if anyone actually cares about reality. The reason for vaccinating the elderly is so that they dont take up hospital beds that the government wishes to be available for those of working age.

Open up too quickly and there will be more people in hospital. Infections spread first in the 20-24, then the adjacent age groups, then their parents and the nursing homes. So the first admissions are young. The old sometimes die quickly, some of the young need long stays to survive.

As time goes by we learn more about what covid does - the people left with diabetes, the mental health problems, testicular infections, even eye problems turning up now. But we also vaccinating at a very good rate so a few weeks longer and all those most at risk of dying have some protection and transmission is reduced.

You can stick your fingers in your ears and pretend uncomfortable facts dont exist, doesnt change the facts at all.

@PracticingPerson

If you have GCSE maths, then you should be able to work out that if we unlock too quickly ICU would be full of unvaccinated people, including a much higher number in their 30s/40s than there are currently.

Well I don’t have GCSE maths, I do have higher maths though, and you’ll need to explain why this would be the case. If people in their 30s and 40s aren’t generally falling so ill as to need ICU now, why would they suddenly do so just because older people are vaccinated?

I watch the news everyday from my native country. They are not in lockdown. They have way fewer covid cases and death compared to England. They announce the number of new cases, death and hospitalization daily. Most new cases seems to be 20s/30s/40s, not many school aged children and over 50s. So active people mixing is causing the spread, but not in school because of measures taken.

Your graphs don’t give any data about ITU admissions - average age of covid ITU inpatients has been in the 58-62yo range
They’re not absolute numbers, obviously 1% of 40 year olds is a lot more people than 1% of 80 year olds
It doesn’t take a lot of people to fill ITUs - they have been horribly overfilled for much of the pandemic, even a significant reduction in numbers (for example by discounting all the over 70s) and ITUs could still be full. We need ITU capacity to be able to do major operations like cancer ops and other major surgery.

Therefore if the overall numbers catching covid double, or triple, across the population, and nothing else changes, we could get ICU occupancy higher than current levels despite the fact the older groups have been now been vaccinated.

But why would numbers double or triple in an increasingly vaccinated population, especially as we now know it is likely that the vaccines reduce transmission?

Admissions to hospital in England yesterday for covid - 9043 were 18-64, 1043 under 16, 849 65-84, 321 85+.

ICU has never been full of very old as they don’t put the very elderly or those who have less chance of surviving harsh treatment in ICU so that’s wrong, the elderly and those with poor medical health stay on wards as they won’t survive icu. That’s not a new thing. But medics/nurses are consistently saying that cases were younger and younger this wave.

Some just don’t want to believe that covid can make people under 70 very sick, it may be smaller numbers but it is consistently happening. They want their normality back so it’s easier to deny that people their own age can be badly affected.

Most hospitals now have long covid clinics due to the amount presenting with medical issues post covid. Just because it hasn’t affected you or your circle does not mean it hasn’t happened.

First it was oh they were old and nearly dead anyway who cares? Now it’s only the obese younger people that get sick. It’s their fault that they are fat greedy pigs. Give us our lives back so I can go on my holidays it’s all so inconvenient.

I think this is the graph you want - note it’s also per 100,000.
Are your in laws working in ITU? If not they may see a very different picture on general wards.

Sorry admissions with covid - cant tell how many were in there for another reason but tested positive.

Well I don’t have GCSE maths, I do have higher maths though, and you’ll need to explain why this would be the case. If people in their 30s and 40s aren’t generally falling so ill as to need ICU now, why would they suddenly do so just because older people are vaccinated?

Why not simply read the post you’re quoting?

Your not accounting for non-Covid patients in ITU, which are increasing and likely to be younger.
As numbers are falling overall, threshold for ITU care will be reduced slightly too.

‘No idea about needing ITU. None of the six people I'm taking about aged between 29-37 in ITU at the moment have any underlying health conditions. Nor my two friends in their 50s who were ventilated a few weeks before that. (All 8 of these anecdote cases were HCPs or teacher, so viral load very probably paid a part.)’

Very strange. Average school attendance rates the last tine I checked ( a couple of weeks ago) were around 5% for secondary schools and 23% for primary. And yet here we have someone claiming that young, healthy teachers are dropping into ICU like flies. Anyone would think there was an agenda

I would have your title changed to at least include a question mark. It is likely to induce more anxiety in people who are afraid of the virus.

Surely this is partly because -

• More people have the virus this time
• Elderly are staying home more than in March 2020 and some were vaccination as early as December and early Jan.
• ventilation being kept for younger people who have more chance of survival

So if overall infections have increased then surely the number of younger people with the infection also increases??

You're so right, ChasingRainbows.

Pretty disgusting, really.

Someone just said, how will it spread more if so many are vaccinated?

Well, if you think about young adult friendship groups or workplaces or schools... The vast, vast majority of people who mix with each other in those settings have not been vaccinated so of course they would still pass the virus around themselves and some will be very poorly and some of them will need to go into ITU.

A small percentage of a large number (no restrictions) is worse than a small percentage of a small number, obviously.

We have done a lot to stop transmission in the working age. I presume people mean if we stop trying to reduce transmission at all because the vulnerable are vaccinated so they wont die- there will be more cases in the unvaccinstdd. So the teeny % that need treatment will stay the same teeny % but there is a lot more infection.

They aren't taking a lot of the very elderly into ICU as their outcome is not good. They are triaging and putting younger people in ICU who have a better recovery rate.

ICU beds are rationed. They take the young not those over 80.

Many of the very old die in care homes or at home, or in hospital but NOT in ICU.

And I've now realised they were the wrong figures, lets try again

Under 16 - 20
16- 64 460
65-84 458
85 plus 210

A friend is an ITU consultant in Hampshire, in mid January the average age of their ITU covid patients was 48. With 70% of their patients under the age of 65.

Fuxache.

No agenda at all.

The people I'm talking about where in ITU first - third/fourth weeks of January (I don't know if they're all out/well/recovered as not seen colleagues for two weeks). They all caught Covid just before Christmas.

Teaching assistant in SEN school.
Radiographer
Nurse x 2
GP
WFH wife of secondary teacher (caught it from him).

Six of the eight's occupations.

Exactly it, Mildred Puppy!

London yesterday

Under 16 - 2
16-64 - 80
65-84 - 55
over 85 - 30

So staff in London hospitals see more young patients, reflecting the different population mix in London.

What @Duckchick said. Those bars show percentages, not raw numbers.

Yup. Despite huge numbers of hospital infections and presumably also staff infections, apparently sending your kids to school is the problem... There's no point arguing on here, many posters seem to just want the worst possible take on everything. You won't change anyone's mind.

Well you can bet modylt if the 85 years pkus admitted to hospital are not in ICU so definitely ICU will have the younger cohort of hospital admissions.
Plus alot of very vulnerable people still haven't been vaccinated. Ok she isn't old but take Jo Willis sister .
www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/18/jo-whiley-misses-bbc-radio-2-show-after-sister-hospitalised-with-covid