Omicron Variant as Deadly as Previous Waves After Adjusting for Comorbidities

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16 points·bookofjoe··5 comments

One communication problem here is that "both sides of the Covid debate" (for lack of a better phrase) may interpret "Omicron Variant as Deadly as Previous Waves" to be favorable to their perspective.

People who are scared of Covid will see that and say "You see, it's as bad as the thing that already killed a million Americans".

People who are not scared of Covid will see that and say "Omicron wasn't a big deal. You see, it's been a big nothingburger all along".

I'm trying to understand why it's important to adjust for comorbidities. Isn't this a major factor with any variant? Honest question. What good does it do to adjust for this when it's always a major reason for hospitalization and death?

If you sort of think backwards, starting from the assumption that the article's conclusion is correct, it implies that comorbidity complications have decreased compared to previous waves. That could be a case of the authors covarying away an effect, but it could mean some comorbid conditions have declined in the pandemic in the study population. It might also mean treatment of the comorbidities has improved (?)

The last stats I heard was then when you remove co-morbidities and existing medical conditions the deaths were less than 13.9% for at least the UK (2022 data) and in the US was less than 9.3%, but the latter was back at the beginning (May 2020). Follow Dr. John Campbell on YouTube and he goes into all the papers and research when it comes to covid and it's treatment.

Keep in mind that this has not passed peer review.

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