As we reported last year, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), about 94 percent of people who die from COVID-19 have specific comorbidities such as pneumonia, type 2 diabetes, obesity, respiratory ailments, high blood pressure, and are over 70 with weak immune systems.
Last September, Dr. Maja Artandi, medical director of the Stanford CROWN Clinic for COVID-19 patients, told Reuters that the CDC’s numbers “are really not a big surprise,” as “patients who have a comorbidity such as diabetes, hypertension or obesity have a higher risk of getting seriously ill and dying from COVID-19.”
Barely a word is mentioned in the mainstream media that 81.23 percent of the COVID deaths are people aged 65 years and older, yet schools are locked down, and many colleges are still stuck in remote learning.
It’s All in the Mind
A study by the Alzheimer’s Association last Tuesday shows that those who have dementia, a disease that damages memory, thinking, and behavior, are considerably more at risk of not only getting COVID but also of dying from it.
As reported by The New York Times, the significant risks of those with dementia, “could not be entirely explained by characteristics common to people with dementia that are known risk factors for COVID-19: old age, living in a nursing home, and having conditions such as obesity, asthma, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. After researchers adjusted for those factors, Americans with dementia were still twice as likely to have gotten COVID-19 as of late last summer.”
The study also revealed that African Americans who have dementia were even more at risk – they are almost three times more susceptible to the coronavirus than whites with dementia. The lead researchers of the study, who looked at over 60 million health records of Americans between February and August, remarked, “This study highlights the need to protect patients with dementia, especially those who are Black.”
Specifically, researchers confirmed that COVID patients with dementia “were 2.6 times as likely to have been hospitalized during the first six months of the pandemic as those without dementia. They were 4.4 times as likely to die.”
Dr. Kenneth Langa, a professor of medicine at the University of Michigan, pointed out that for those who have dementia, “There is the cognitive impairment and the fact that they are more socially at risk.” He added it was important to know that as extensive as the study was, there is no way to get access to the many dementia sufferers who are more isolated than the normal population and, in many cases, less likely to seek medical attention. This undoubtedly means the study is “an underestimate of the greater COVID-19 infection risk for those with dementia.”
A disturbing part of the unfolding data showing the vulnerability of those with dementia to COVID-19 was brought up in a 10 February Newsweek article on the subject. The article included the following statement from Dr. Avindra Nath, clinical director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), on the link between COVID and dementia:
“The realization that there’s a neurological effect has been really recent. I’ve been trying to beat that drum for quite some time. Patients have been complaining about it for months, but the scientists were not doing anything about it.”
TRENDPOST: Again, barely a word is mentioned by the media and politicians who promote draconian lockdown rules that lack a scintilla of scientific data (such as it’s OK to eat in a restaurant sitting at a table without a mask on, but patrons must wear one when standing up, etc.) are the age of those dying from the virus and the comorbidity factors.
In America, according to statista.com, 81.23 percent of COVID deaths are people aged 65 years and older, yet schools are locked down and many colleges are still stuck in remote learning.
TRENDPOST: As to why Blacks with dementia are dying at a higher rate, also absent in The New York Times article is, “Why”?
As we have documented week after week in the Trends Journal, since the COVID War began last March, and again noted in this issue, COVID-19 has been a significant danger to a limited group of people: those over 65 years old and those with major pre-existing health issues such as high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and chronic heart and lung disease.
Since African-Americans suffer from these ailments at a higher rate than others, it follows that they are dying at disproportionate rates. Here is proof in the data:
- According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Black adults are 60 percent more likely than non-Hispanic white adults to have been diagnosed with diabetes by a physician; non-Hispanic blacks were 3.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with end-state renal disease compared to non-Hispanic whites; blacks were twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to die from diabetes.
- According to the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, one in ten diabetic patients with COVID-19 died within a week of being hospitalized. The study also found that the majority of the patients had type 2 diabetes and were suffering cardiovascular diseases.
- According to the CDC, almost 80 percent of intensive-care patients and 70 percent of hospitalized COVID-19 patients had one or more of these serious chronic health conditions.
- Certain states show higher rates of deaths among blacks than others. In Georgia, almost half of all COVID-19 deaths are among Blacks despite representing only 32 percent of the overall population.
- According to Kaiser Health News, while African Americans represent nearly 14 percent of Michigan’s population, they represent 24 percent of the deaths from coronavirus.
TRENDPOST: In the 2 June Trends Journal, we wrote how in cities such as Detroit, MI, where polluting industries surround poorer neighborhoods and people are not in good health, deaths from COVID spike higher.
And, as noted in our 12 May issue, while Italy suffered the largest percentage of deaths in Europe from COVID-19, it is barely mentioned that about half of all deaths from the virus took place in the Lombardy region, whose capital is Milan, which has high levels of air pollutants.
In further supporting the factuality that the virus attacks the weak, it was reported yesterday that in Poland, more than 10 percent of COVID-19 cases have occurred at coal mines.
Aaron Bernstein, professor at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health and one of the research leaders, stated, “People who have been living in places that are more polluted… are more likely to die from coronavirus.”