94% of Coronavirus deaths include underlying conditions.

Electron microscope image of  Coronavirus particles. NIAID. 

94% of Coronavirus deaths included an underlying condition with only 6% of deaths stemming from the disease alone. Atlanta Journal Constitution. These comorbidities include respiratory failure, vascular failure, dementia, heart failure, renal failure and injury. The CDC also says that less than 10,000 people in America had listed only Coronavirus as the cause of death. 

My Comment:

This story is causing quite a lot of political controversy, which I will cover first. President Trump retweeted a post that essentially said the same thing as the article in the AJC. That post was removed by Twitter, the user denigrated as a conspiracy theorist and the President was attacked for it. The articles attacking the post as well falsely claim that the data is wrong. 

I think this is another good example of the tech companies being out of control. This goes far beyond trying to protect people from false information, they are peddling in it now. Unless the CDC is lying about their numbers then the post was true and should not have been removed. But Twitter did it anyways because lying about the President is more important to them then actually letting correct information get out there. 

With that out of the way, I do think this information isn't that surprising. It's been clear for awhile now that the virus mostly kills only people that are either elderly or weak from some other condition. The actual numbers are slightly shocking though, with only 6% of people who died did so while otherwise healthy. And I am guessing that a decent portion of that 6% was elderly or had a condition that wasn't discovered.

Does this mean that the virus isn't dangerous? Of course not. There are a lot of people that have underlying conditions in this country and if all of them get the disease a decent number of them will die. American health isn't that great to begin with and if the virus infects everyone then there will be even more deaths then we have now. 

But I do think it shows that your average person doesn't have too much to worry about when it comes to Covid-19. If you aren't already sick or have some kind of medical issue you should be able to survive the disease if you get it. Indeed, everyone I know that has had the Coronavirus has made a full recovery and many of them only had the mildest of mild symptoms, no worse than a case of Influenza or even the common cold. 

This information could be used to change the way we are dealing with the virus. Instead of blanket lockdowns and mask mandates we could focus our efforts on protecting the most vulnerable. This is how we have treated every other outbreak in recent history and I don't know why we can't do it again for Coronavirus. 

As for the reaction to the disease, I think people are sick and tired of it. I do see people complying with the mask mandates here in Wisconsin but only when they go into stores. Other than that I rarely see people with masks on. Indeed, when I hear about the virus at all it's mostly people complaining about how things aren't back to normal yet, with very little worry about actually catching the disease. 

Indeed, the virus itself isn't anywhere near the story it was earlier this year. Current events have overtaken it completely to the point where it's basically only ever discussed when it can be framed as a political attack on Republicans. The health community blew there chance to have the disease taken seriously when they came out in support of the riots. After that, nobody cared what they had to say anymore as it's crazy to suggest that not wearing a mask while shopping will kill grandma but doing the same while rioting is perfectly safe...