The pandemic has caused a surge of fatal cardiac arrests in Australia, as delayed care and COVID’s damaging effect on the heart drives a major uptick in serious heart issues.
More than 10,200 Australians died of ischemic heart disease in the first eight months of 2022 – that is about 17 per cent higher than would be expected in a normal year.
Cardiovascular Disease
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Figures reveal there were 18,394 deaths ‘due to’ Covid recorded this year in England and Wales. But since May there have been 23,195 excess deaths where the primary cause was another condition.
Some of those people did die with a coronavirus infection, but it was not the main reason for the death.
Experts continue to argue over the reasons behind this recent uptick in unexpected deaths, which shows no sign of slowing.
But it is likely that collateral damage from the pandemic, coupled with long term NHS problems, have collided into a perfect, and deadly, storm.
…Prof Banerjee fears that the indirect effects of the pandemic will turn out to be greater than the harm from Covid itself, and that it is vital for future preparedness planning to take into account long-term outcomes.
Nature published a comprehensive study this week on cardiovascular risk including a total of over 11 million patients that has made a few headlines. The aim was to identify the cause of increased cardiac pathology. It should have been a very simple study comparing four groups:
Not infected and never vaccinated
Not infected and vaccinated
Infected but not vaccinated
Infected and vaccinatedIt is hard to believe the authors did not look at these groups, but whatever was found when comparing them remains a mystery.
Instead, the following groups were compared:
Not infected and never vaccinated data from 2017
Not infected, including vaccinated and not vaccinated
Infected but not vaccinated
Infected with vaccinated people included but using modelled adjustmentsWhen studies with huge datasets use modelling and fail to share data prior to their adjustments alarm bells should start ringing. Therefore, I took a deeper dive to see what else was questionable.
The cardiovascular complications of acute coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are well described, but the post-acute cardiovascular manifestations of COVID-19 have not yet been comprehensively characterized. Here we used national healthcare databases from the US Department of Veterans Affairs to build a cohort of 153,760 individuals with COVID-19, as well as two sets of control cohorts with 5,637,647 (contemporary controls) and 5,859,411 (historical controls) individuals, to estimate risks and 1-year burdens of a set of pre-specified incident cardiovascular outcomes. We 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). Our results provide evidence that the risk and 1-year burden of cardiovascular disease in survivors of acute COVID-19 are substantial. Care pathways of those surviving the acute episode of COVID-19 should include attention to cardiovascular health and disease.
Commentary by Dr. Clare Craig: Heart Problems After Covid Are Much Worse for the Vaccinated, Nature Study Shows – But It’s Hidden in the Appendix
http://archive.today/2022.02.08-054001/https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01689-3
Vitamin D deficiency is strongly associated with increased risk for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
The odds ratio for COVID-19 increases with vitamin deficiency in black individuals.
Diabetes, obesity, and periodontal disease are associated with an increased risk for both COVID-19 and vitamin D deficiency.
Patients with vitamin D deficiency were 4.6 times more likely to be positive for COVID-19 (indicated by the ICD-10 diagnostic code COVID19) than patients with no deficiency (P < 0.001). The association decreased slightly after adjusting for sex (odds ratio [OR] = 4.58; P < 0.001) and malabsorption (OR = 4.46; P < 0.001), respectively. The association decreased significantly but remained robust (P < 0.001) after adjusting for race (OR = 3.76; P < 0.001), periodontal disease status (OR = 3.64; P < 0.001), diabetes (OR = 3.28; P < 0.001), and obesity (OR = 2.27; P < 0.001), respectively. In addition, patients with vitamin D deficiency were 5 times more likely to be infected with COVID-19 than patients with no deficiency after adjusting for age groups (OR = 5.155; P < 0.001).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899900720303890
We have had plenty of anecdotes about people failing to be diagnosed with serious diseases during lockdown. This is thanks to either to hospitals cancelling appointments, GP surgeries stopping face-to-face meetings or people picking up the message that they should protect the NHS by trying not to use it.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/quantifying-the-cost-of-lockdown
Our study shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a large number of potentially missed or delayed diagnoses of health conditions, which carry high risk if not promptly diagnosed and effectively treated. Primary and secondary care services must proactively prepare to address the large backlog of patients that is likely to follow. Should a public health emergency on the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic occur in the future, or if subsequent surges in COVID-19 cases arise, national communication strategies must be carefully considered to ensure that large numbers of patients with urgent health needs do not disengage with health services.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(20)30201-2/fulltext#