- A California school district is in the news for saying they will be testing students via temperature, nasal swab & BLOOD DRAW.
- Veep Harris is in the news for telling folks to start their Christmas shopping early to avoid possible global supply chain issues (which suggests more economic lockdowns may be on the horizon).
- Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla is in the news admitting that, as of yet, scientists have not been able to identify a vaccine that can stop variants in their tracks: “Every time that the variant appears in the world, our scientists are getting their hands around it. They are researching to see if this variant can escape the protection of our vaccine. We haven’t identified any yet…”
- Biden is in the news for (well, several reasons not limited to) urging corporations, private businesses and nonprofits to mandate employee vaccinations.
I want to look at this through an unbiased lens. I mean, I can be unbiased. I think.
I know none of us are truly unbiased, and I do have biases. One, maybe two. But I think if you read what I’m about to show you, number one, you’ll realize why I’m so biased, and number two, you’ll see that my biases are, indeed, founded. And my attempt is to deliver it in such a way that it does not tilt your biases, rather it informs and educates. (*fingers crossed emoji)
Just to be upfront, my biases (this word is already getting old): I believe we need to make health the main thing because healthy people are less vulnerable to ending up in the hospital or in ICU. And they’re surely less likely to suffer adverse health issues.
Here we go.
According to the research (see below for the link), out of 4.8 million hospitalized adults (over age 18) and across 800 different hospitals in the U.S., 540,000 individuals were hospitalized due to C*19.
(I would have thought this number would have been much higher.)
Of course there might be data that’s not included, and this research was only conducted from March 2020 to March 2021, but we’re talking about 11% of the hospitalization visits from 800 different hospitals were for C*19.
This new data found 94.9% of C*19 patients had the following common underlying health conditions (which most of us probably expect to be present) (except for number four) (and that all were highly preventable):
- High blood pressure
- Lipid imbalances
- Obesity
- Anxiety
In fact, the entire top 10 most prevalent conditions listed in this research were caused largely by people’s nutrition and lifestyle choices.
It’s been long known that underlying health conditions were risk factors for more severe infections and death, but this data from 540,000 infected patients across 800 different hospitals shares new insights.
NEW INSIGHTS. NEW INSIGHTS. NEW INSIGHTS. NEW INSIGHTS.
While it’s known that the number of underlying conditions that someone has increases the risk of death by several orders of magnitude, it’s important to know that 5.5% of all the hospitalized patients DID NOT HAVE one or more chronic health conditions. This says that half the C*19 hospitalizations included at least one, maybe more, pre-existing chronic health conditions.
The two conditions most strongly associated with risk of death were obesity and anxiety/fear-related disorders.
In fact, the strongest factor for death was obesity at 30% increased risk of death, and anxiety-based disorders at 28% increased risk of death.
This is where I have to pause and be critical of the bingeable fear-based messaging and propaganda, and misinformation from the main-stream media outlets.
Think back. Heck, look forward. A lot of people were so scared they didn’t leave their house, they sanitized, they wore masks and gloves, they had social-distancing hula hoops around them when they walked outside. I have to wonder if this unintended harm associated with the fear-based messaging can actually make people more susceptible to getting severely sick or even dying? I’ll let you decide what you think.
And then there is Diabetes with complication which shows 26% increased odds of death.
Figure 1 (above) shows the prevalence of the most frequent underlying health conditions in the sample of hospitalized patients.
What you’re seeing is this:
- Essential Hypertension (and this means elevated levels of blood pressure) is prevalent in about 50% of individuals
- Disorders of Lipid Metabolism (this involves cholesterol)
- Obesity
- Diabetes with Complication
You can read the list but look at all that’s at the top. This is preventable stuff.
Let’s get to what I find eye-popping and mind-blowing: Anxiety and fear-related disorders only made up about 20% of the most frequent underlying conditions, but they were strongly linked with death. Remember: 28% increased odds in terms of death. See above.
This is important to hit again regarding the unintended harms from the fear-based messaging and the disempowering information. What is the neurobiology of anxiety and the results of how our thoughts transmute specific messaging into our immune system? Anyone know that answer?
Constantly consuming fear-based messaging… death, dying, problems, the economy, the border, Afghanistan, Christmas shopping in August, and, and, and… all this can obviously contribute to anxiety – and now we’re seeing that anxiety is a frequently linked challenge here.
Eye-popping.
Figure 2 (above) shows the risk/ratio of death and the chances of going on a ventilator. What you’re looking at is:
- Individuals that have no conditions compared to at least one pre-existing condition are 1.5x more likely to die.
- Now compare individuals who have two to five pre-existing conditions compared to those who have none, we’re talking about 2.55x higher likelihood of death.
- And here’s where it gets really interesting: some people have 10 or more conditions, and, yes, the prevalence of pre-existing conditions vary state from state (on the low end from 20% up to 63% depending on where you live), but individuals who have between six and 10 pre-existing conditions are 3.29x more likely to die compared to individuals who have none.
And I get it – you might have bad genetics (which no one can control). Mom and dad gave you a bad deck of cards. Maybe you have an autoimmune disease that’s inheritable. Maybe you have asthma. Maybe you have a pre-existing condition you can’t control, but I find it hard to believe that if you have six or seven—or 10—that you can blame all of them on genetics.
I can also believe there might be a small percentage of people that do have maybe 2-5 conditions that are 100% inherited, but personally I think it’s much more likely that individuals who have multiple chronic conditions got them from their own nutrition, lack of exercise, lifestyle, and bad habits. ßbiases
You can blame genetics. You can blame information. You can blame the system. But really, we need to take ownership.
We all have access to information and to the internet. I mean this isn’t 1920. With that in mind, and while I do have compassion that some people are not actually getting health information, I believe this is why the CDC, WHO, our government, should all be disseminating the information. This should be the message. I mean, if the more [preventable] pre-existing conditions you have, the more likely you are to die or end up on a ventilator or in ICU, then why are we not talking about preventing death with good nutrition, sleep habits, exercise… ?
Unbiased/biased. How about just plain common sense. We need to prioritize health with proper nutrition, exercise, and a whole host of other preventative strategies. Yes, these are my biases and I’m critical of main-stream media networks because they have (for whatever reason) ignored health and omitted this entire topic in their reporting. I think it’s disingenuous and dishonest. And saying I’m critical of the government for their fear mongering might be the understatement of the century. But we could save so many lives if we make health the focal point rather than death.
Reference (published July 1, 2021):
