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Comment by verdverm | Hacker News Reader

An interesting question is how many would have died if America was not so obese? It seems, given the comorbidities, that governments should have been messaging on this front much more than they have. The with to from covid is a spectrum with inconsistent definition.

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Obesity is a huge factor. If we had a zero obesity rate I suspect that would cut the infection fatality rate by at least 2/3.

https://www.wfae.org/health/2021-09-30/novant-says-9-of-10-c...

https://cardiologyres.org/index.php/Cardiologyres/article/vi...

https://reason.com/2022/01/03/cdc-covid-19-children-hospital...

That's kind of where I'm at this point. I just want to know the non obese number to know what I need to do for myself besides vaccination and already having the virus. Or can I just go on with life? It's really the same way I want to know how many people die of Lung cancer that aren't smokers so I can get radon detectors for home and not be around people that smoke and potentially any other risk factors I'm at.

There is information out there for things you can do, but it's largely been labeled anti-vax because it's often paired with questions about the need for vaccines in healthy individuals.

Science has suffered greatly in this pandemic, I'm worried for the rippling effect in the future.

80% of hospitalizations in the US were overweight or obese, the number is even more egregious for under-65 hospitalizations and deaths.

There's some data (small sample, vaccinated people only) at https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/pdfs/mm7101a4-H.pdf .

Fair question. We are still operating in the real world. US has an obesity epidemic and that should be fixed, that doesn't prevent the real-world death and healthcare stresses that we are seeing and will be many years of work before the obesity epidemic is tackled. We have to operate in the world we live in with the precautions we take.

We can't just blanket say: "Well you all are obese, so we aren't going to do anything" and instead are trying to do something that might help millions more not die. I have a lot of reservations about many of the tactics, but at the same time the answer is not "do nothing" (which I don't think you are recommending, but is the recommendation of some that repeat these talking points).

Brazil has a lower obesity rate and much higher fatalities. It's a multifaceted problem and I think it's irresponsible to paint this as a "if you die from COVID it's your fault because you had comorbidities". That's eugenics. If you're drunk and get into a car crash the ER is still going to treat you. It's a shame governments worried so much about messaging instead of sending free PPE and paying people + small businesses to stay home for a month or so and actually enforce it.

And what is your point exactly? COVID can kill an individual thousands of times faster than they can shed their other comorbities. So then what? In an ideal world, the government would have focused on health YEARS ago, but that's not real life. In real life my grandmother cannot walk and is overweight, and thus cannot do almost anything about it. So should she just die in your scenario? And that's fine because she's older and fat?

My point is that there has been a singular focus rather than talking about all of the things that can help. Obesity and losing weight is just one of those.

Several policy decisions ignore the science and have made matters worse.

I don't see how you're going to legislate for people to weigh less

The pandemic has been on for 2 years now. Everyone can reduce obesity by consuming fewer calories even if unable to exercise. Let's focus on finding solutions instead of making excuses.

Maybe in the past, but today since everyone is obese by the standards a couple generations back it’s not significant datapoint.

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