I was about to post this, but am in the process of pulling references to support.
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Oh, I absolutely agree. Who knows what future medical problems will occur? Or how many future drug deaths from young addicts? All very sad.
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Hopefully current and/or new treatments will become available for covid/long covid and decrease long term/unknown damage as well as clear covid from the various tissues/organs it can lie dormant in. Asking for a lot, I know!
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A year ago, anti-vaxxers were making false statements that the vaccine caused cancer, infertility, other unsubstantiated claims. All the while we had visual evidence of the severity of disease caused by the virus itself. High number of deaths, severe organ damage. And knowing that other viruses cause relatively innocuous initial disease, only to be followed by severe disease including cancer years later, the potential for the burden of chronic disease from SARS-CoV-2 remained high.
We are now seeing the initial studies being published and the results are indeed scary.
âWe show that, beyond the first 30 d after infection, individuals with COVID-19 are at increased risk of incident cardiovascular disease spanning several categories, including cerebrovascular disorders, dysrhythmias, ischemic and non-ischemic heart disease, pericarditis, myocarditis, heart failure and thromboembolic disease. These risks and burdens were evident even among individuals who were not hospitalized during the acute phase of the infection and increased in a graded fashion according to the care setting during the acute phase (non-hospitalized, hospitalized and admitted to intensive care).â
âThe incidence of cognitive impairment in survivors 12 months after discharge was 12.45%.â and ânonsevere COVID-19 was associated with a higher risk of early-onset cognitive decline (OR, 1.71; 95% CI, 1.30-2.27) when adjusting for age, sex, education level, body mass index, and comorbidities.â
âWe identified significant longitudinal effects when comparing the two groups, including: (i) greater reduction in grey matter thickness and tissue-contrast in the orbitofrontal cortex and parahippocampal gyrus, (ii) greater changes in markers of tissue damage in regions functionally-connected to the primary olfactory cortex, and (iii) greater reduction in global brain size.â
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01689-3?fbclid=IwAR2aTXXUC66x0mEJqha355EjJo6ZMncn2f2RRKy1FtNiHxD_O2uxBlb5t4I
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04569-5?fbclid=IwAR363HXI_vpPCTpc0JNHUnn12EyJMAo1CS1bnlzQvLtsem8SSEI8B7P5kPo
And that is not to mention the probable significant volume of other disease, such as autoimmune, or worse, yet to come.
In the meantime, weâve seen how the claims of cancer, infertility, miscarriage, blah blah blah due to vaccine have panned out.
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Thatâs the MO among most groups who prefer a more laissez-faire approach to dealing with covid --exaggerate the harms done by the remediating measures while simultaneously diminishing the disastrous impact of covid.
For example, by reading this thread one might think that the covid measures have caused a drastic jump in the number of suicides, and that suicides and other deaths âcausedâ by remedial measures will somehow surpass the direct covid losses. Yet, despite the many very real mental health challenges relating to covid, the overall the suicide rate has actually declined. Suicide in the U.S. Declined During the Pandemic.
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That headline is true that suicides decreased overall, but the same is not true when you look at suicides by age and for all demographics. Some of those differences are pretty large, especially among young people in communities of color.
Here are a few quotes from a recent article.
âAmong younger Americans, suicide rates increased slightly in all groups between ages 10 and 34, though the only statistically significant increase was a 5% jump among 25- to 34-year-oldsâ.
âMeanwhile, suicide rates increased for both Black and Hispanic females in 2020. Deaths among Black girls and women between ages 10 and 24 increased more than 30%, from 1.6 to 2.1 per 100,000 people. Black boys and men of the same age had a 23% increase, from 3 to 3.7 per 100,000. Among Hispanic girls and women in the same age group, the rate increased by 40%, and Hispanic boys and men had a 20% increase. Asian girls and women ages 15-24 also had a nearly 30% increaseâ.
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I donât think there can be a blanket statement saying mandates/lockdowns/masking whatever else has possibly caused a rise in suicide rates. We donât know the economic or psychosocial stressors people are under. Maybe someone had to on take on extra work or extra family responsibilities because a family member or breadwinner died because of Covid. Or they see a friend suffering from Covid and theyâre worried about their own health. Maybe misinformation gets people confused and desperate. Maybe people are spending more time together since theyâre not going out as much and therefore noticing depression in loved ones that would have gone unnoticed before Covid.
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My mantra to all the people I know IRL is that we must give ourselves some grace. Weâve never been through a pandemic. We need to express that this period of time has been hard. Itâs been hard for everyone.
Iâve had friends pass away, that we havenât seen much because of COVID. Iâve have family members get COVID. Iâve met people who donât believe in the vaccine. Iâve had senior members who have been isolated. Iâve had younger members who have struggled with mental health issues. I have friends who are in the medical community who donât even talk about it, because itâs so horrible.
Itâs really, really hard to feel like we are going through this together, when weâve been forced to be apart.
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I am thankful that my 4 loved ones 80+ who got covid are fine; and so thankful for the vax! what a relief. For me, I know of one elderly lady who died of covid. I recognize EVERYONE has had different situations and sees things differently.
but when it comes to suicide; i know and know friends who know of 3 teens/young adults who committed suicide during the pandemic. breaks my heart. Webmd - mentions how the how yes, the suicide rate did go down, but it escalated in young adults. weâve all heard about the horrid suicides in the LasVegas school district as well.
No one is saying the elderly are expendable. what? no no no. but now they have the vaccine, and the death rate has dropped incredibly for those smart enough to get it; and most elderly have figured that out.
Itâs time to focus on the youth and the repercussions theyâve had; especially the most vulnerable. eg: The low income kids who depend on the school systems for food, guidance, education and stability in their lives. (yes. my 81 yr old parents drive one such kid to school every day. tutor that kid, and are in shock how incredibly behind that kid is.) The education and well-being of that kid is so much more important to them than staying home.
Itâs time to help the kids who wonât take off their masks because it is now a security blanket, and they are afraid of showing their face/emotions. (from my friend - with a jr and sophomore and what her kids are seeing and feeling). The college kids who were so lonely in new situations. The list goes on and on. Millions and millions have had unreported covid. i hope the long-haul effects minimal. But itâs time to focus on youth.
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All those deaths are tragic, but as @TexasTiger2 mentions we donât know the reasons behind the increases for those particular groups, or that there is a clear causal link to particular covid remediation measures rather than to covid itself, or other factors.
Likewise regarding the often repeated link to the documented increase drug overdoses. Deaths relating to opioid use have been trending up for a number of years, and I donât doubt that the increases most recently are at least partially related to covid. But is the increase caused by particular remediation measures like mask mandates or temporary online schooling? That seems to be more than a bit of stretch, or at least there is no solid evidence backing up the theory.
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As @ChangeTheGame quoted, among those aged 10-34, "the only statistically significant increase was a 5% jump among 25- to 34-year-oldsâ.
I definitely understand that those increases in suicides could have multiple causes. But the 20-40 percent increases in suicides in 1 year among the particular young groups listed shows something terrible has happened.
The point that you made that overall suicides decreased, while true is the same type of âtruthâ that I have seen used to pass on forms of disinformation during the pandemic , because it lacked the needed context about how young people were affected (and that was who the previous poster specifically mention as being harmed). The elderly and immuno-compromised have been devastated by Covid over the last 2 years. I see no need to devalue what young people have also gone through.
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I am personally really worried about the Nature study I posted above. It showed brain atrophy/loss of grey matter/change in brain structure because of the virus. And those changes appear to be irreversible. And no idea if it will get progressively worse.
To me, those findings alone are much more serious to kidsâ health than the possible increase in suicide rate that may possibly be related to Covid.
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I think we tend to feel empathy for those we have direct contact with. Itâs human nature.
Most of us have senior members of our family and so we have experienced what theyâve been through during this pandemic.
If we have older children who have young children, we empathize with their predicament. Same with those with elementary and older children at home. We see the world through our own eyes and those who we are closest to.
But I feel and this is only my opinion is that we need to give everyone grace and feel for everyoneâs experience.
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Unfortunately the figures you quoted from the WebMD article contain a typo. The quote refers to the 10-24 age group but the numbers donât add up. The numbers apply to the 10-14 age group. This is an important error because there are relatively few suicides among this younger, narrower age group, and small fluctuations in raw numbers cause huge fluctuations in the percentages. For example
- While the number of suicides by black girls ages 10 and 14 increased by 26 percent, there were only 6 more total suicides for the year. (23 in 2019, 29 in 2020)
- Likewise, while the number of suicides by hispanic girls ages 10 and 14 increased by 40 percent, there were only 15 more total suicides for the year. (39 in 2019, 55 in 2020.)
Every one of these suicides is tragic, but I am not sure that this necessarily meansthat âsomething terrible has happened,â beyond factors discussed by @TexasTiger2 above. And of course it says nothing about causation.
Regardless, whether on purpose or not, the author has cherry-picked extremely small subgroups to make the issue look much more dire than it really is. Overall, the rates are higher for broader age group among younger black and hispanic men and women, but nearly as high as the author has suggested, and I suspect the total numbers arenât nearly what people have been led to believe.
I was addressing the hypothesis that we have seen a substantial increase of the number of suicides among young people during covid, and that this increase was caused by avoidable remedial covid measures. That was the âcontext,â and addressing it on its own terms isnât devaluing anyone. The issue you raise - the increased impact to certain racial demographics of young people - is also worth exploring (see above) but it wasnât part of the hypothesis (or the comments) I was addressing.
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Given all these issues, I am surprised that the CDC is supporting less masking. I understand the overall desire to return to pre-COVID normalcy but media and CDC messaging/discussion of these COVID induced health/medical problems seems to have diminished over the last year. I wonder if people would view a COVID infection more seriously if they understood the possibility/probability future problems.
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For whatever reason, the risks of COVID-19 have mainly been framed in terms of death or hospitalization, with long COVID or any other potentially longer term damage being routinely ignored in studies and media reports on the matter (other than the few specifically about long COVID). Hence, it is likely that long COVID is underestimated when people are assessing the severity of COVID-19, whether in terms of what personal mitigations they will do or what mitigations they will support in terms of public health.
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I agree.
Where I live, the reproduction rate is well below 1 (0.5) and the test positivity rate is really low (less than 5% for the past 2 weeks) so masking isnât necessary to mitigate transmission. Now all we can do is see if any serious conditions develop in those who have recovered from the virus. The Nature study published this week found accelerated cerebral atrophy by comparing brain scans before and after infection to those of a control group. Infected people had mostly non-severe Covid infections. The study included people who had non-Covid pneumonia, and these people did not show cerebral atrophy, just those with Covid. The authors did case-control matching and confounder analysis.
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This stuff is really scary. I have not had Covid, at least as far as I know. Nor has DH or D1. But D2 and her fiance both had it. Fiance got really sick. He was vaxxed x 2. D2 had been vaxxed x 2 and had her booster 7 days before she was exposed. She didnât test positive until 11 days later, but I suspect she actually got it not from the party that exposed her and her fiance, but from her fiance as he got very ill.
She only had a mild cough and some sniffles. No fever, no other severe symptoms.
But that apparently doesnât mean she wonât have horrible sequelae down the road? Very frightening.
Thereâs nothing any of us can do to prevent possible negative consequences of this infection after the fact. But it really does disturb me. Those that continue to downplay this reality-whatâs your rationale???
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While there is no guarantee against any type of long COVID, the risk of such is lower in breakthrough infections after vaccination than it is for infections in the unvaccinated.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00460-6/fulltext
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