I'm tired of people saying that someone with underlying conditions wasn't actually killed by COVID

[NickB79]

People really need to start thinking about Covid more like HIV. Why? Because technically, no one anywhere has ever died of HIV. They die of complications brought on by HIV destroying their immune system, leaving them vulnerable to secondary infections. Similarly, Covid damages your body through lung damage, heart damage and blood clots, leaving you vulnerable to pneumonia, kidney failure, strokes and heart failure. So when morons say "but he died of diabetes, not Covid", it's pretty obvious the Covid infection is what pushed him over the cliff to death.

[Zoonart]

1. Exactly THIS.

The focus should be NOT on the number of dead, but on the number of folks who have had their health permanently damaged by COVID. The knock-on effects of this virus are monumental.

[jimfields33]

5. Or worse, but 80 percent were over aged 90.

As if they don’t matter. I hear that way too often. I cringe and get really pissed off.

[Kingofalldems]

15. Got a link on that?

[Kingofalldems]

16. Looks false from here.

https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/06/23/coronavirus-covid-deaths-us-age-race-14863

Why are you posting this false information on DU?

[Jerry2144]

2. It's like getting hit by a bus

A person could be dying of stage 4 cancer with only months to live who loses his balance and falls in front of a bus to get crushed. The bus (COVID-19) killed him. But if the cancer led to his loss of balance it contributed but is not the cause. People can live for long periods of time with underlying conditions assuming they can afford the medical care and medicines.

[MyOwnPeace]

3. ZOOM!!!! Over the head of SO many MAGATS!

You know there's a long trail of IQ45 saying it was "just like the flu" - "the doctors and hospitals are blaming it on COVID so they can get more money."

WHAT BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!

Sad how many lives we've lost because of an idiot in the White House - and 70 million who believe him.

[Ms. Toad]

4. It's not the same thing.

The actual cause of death in people with HIV IS the secondary condition, which only occurred because HIV made them vulnerable. The timeline is HIV -> secondary condition -> death from secondary condition.

It is reversed for COVID 19:

Underlying condition (e.g. diabetes) -> COVID -> death from COVID.

What people are (falsely) saying is that the pre-existing comorbidity killed people who died from COVID (even though the death certificates list COVID as the cause of death).

The things you list as COVID leaving you more vulnerable to are actually part and parcel of COVID, not secondary conditions to which you are more vulnerable. Pneumonia, strokes, and heart damage are part of the disease itself. Not secondary conditions.

There's a saying in tort law that you take your victims as you find them: If a plaintiff has an eggshell skull (a medical condition) and you wrongfully tap their skull causing massive damage you are responsible for all of the damage even if the average person would not even have been bruised. That's the COVID scenario. COVID causes massive damage to those with eggshell skulls (diabetes, heart disease, lung disease)

HIV does not work the same way - it is not finding victims with oppotunistc conditions and causing disproportionate damage. HIV - in essence - is the eggshell skull, and opportunistic infections that the average person would not even be aware of can kill the person with an eggshell skull (HIV)

[kcr]

6. The analogy still holds, though

Because it's still the HIV that caused the condition. The process is just in reverse. In both cases, they kill people without pre-existing conditions.

[Ms. Toad]

8. You are correct that HIV caused the condition - and that is why the analogy fails.

For the analogy to hold, you would need to argue that diabetes was actually the cause of death when a person with diabetes dies of COVID, and that's the opposite of the point the OP was trying to make.

This is the logical:

Underlying disease: HIV - diabetes (for example)
secondary disease: Kaposi's sarcoma - COVID

For the analogy to hold - either both HIV and diabetes are the causes of death OR Kaposi's sarcoma and COVID are the causes of death.

The reality is that these are not analogous.

HIV kills indirectly (by creating an opportunity/environment for an ordinarily harmless opportunistic disease to infect and kill).

COVID kills directly (by any number of vectors that can overwhelm hearts, lungs, circulatory systems; it may be more deadly when those systems are already damaged by a primary disease)

[Redleg]

9. Well stated

You could say that some underlying conditions might allow covid to have a greater negative impact on their health than it would without the underlying conditions. If covid is what put them into the hospital and required intensive care, covid is the proximal cause of death.

As I write this I have a good friend in his mid-50s who has had only minor health issues who is seriously ill and hospitalized with covid. I have a brother-in-law, around 60 who only experienced mild symptoms and didn't need hospitalization.

I think the media needs to do a better job of informing people about the serious long-term effects of covid on people who survive. There are still people out there who think it's about the same as the flu.

[Ms. Toad]

14. Absolutely (as to the media) -

There is an extraordinarly amount of heart damage even from mild cases, and even when there aren't cognizable injuries to a specific organ, quite a few become "long haulers," with systemic effects that severely diminish their quality of life for months. We don't yet know how long.

[LisaL]

7. Underlying conditions make it easier for covid to kill someone.

In the end it's covid that killed them.

[JCMach1]

10. Sorry, but not true. At my darkest days in hospitals you feel the virus

Slowly killing your healthy lung cells like an executioner...

It's not like the flu, not like HIV, not like normal pneumonia, it's like nothing you have ever experienced before.

The virus is a beast.

[CanonRay]

11. My neighbor thought he had Covid back in mid February

and died from a heart attack in early April.

[leftyladyfrommo]

12. I wonder who dreamed up that talking point? nd

[Gothmog]

13. I have a number of risk factors for COVID and so I have been very caretul about the risks

From a causation standpoint COVID is the cause of death is a person with risk factors dies due to COVID