Changing the Guidance on the Use of Moderna's mRNA-1273 COVID-19 Vaccine

On September 29, 2021, the Ministry of Health in Ontario, Canada's largest province, released an update to its guidance for the use of COVID-19 vaccines for youth aged 12 to 17 years as shown here:

 

 

Notice this sentence under the "Highlights of changes" because it is of critical importance:

 

"Information regarding a preferential recommendation for Pfizer BioNTech in specific age groups."

  

Here are the key changes:

 

Basically, any young person that is living in the province of Ontario, is between the ages of 12 and 24 and has received the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for their first dose will now receive the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 for their second and presumably future doses since there is a higher risk of developing myocarditis and pericarditis in that age group, particularly among males.

  

Now, since this pandemic has been all about the "science", let's see what Moderna had to say about the mixing of its mRNA-1273 vaccine with other COVID-19 vaccines in a press release dated September 15, 2021, just two weeks prior to the announced changes to Ontario's vaccine policy:

 

Let's repeat that.  Moderna very, very clearly states that there is no data available on the mixing of its mRNA vaccine with the COVID-19 vaccines created by other companies and that individuals who have received one dose of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine should receive a second dose of the Moderna vaccine. It is also interesting to note that Moderna admits that additional and potentially serious adverse reactions to its mRNA vaccine may present themselves as the vaccine rollout continues.  In other words, even Moderna is admitting that there are significant unknowns to the mRNA-1273 vaccine, something that you will never hear from government or public health officials who keep insisting that the vaccines are safe and fully tested.

 

So, who do we trust?  A government that has taken the approach that 100 percent of its population should be vaccinated or the vaccine manufacturer?  This is what happens when you roll out and heavily promote a vaccine that is still undergoing Phase 3 trials in the middle of a "pandemic" without fully understanding the repercussions of the vaccines to human health over the short-, medium- and long-term.

YouTube - Further Controlling the COVID-19 Vaccine Narrative

For those of you that have read George Orwell's 1984, one of my favourite books, Winston Smith, an employee at the ironically named Ministry of Truth, is responsible for destroying history that is inconvenient to the Party.  Over the past two years, it has become increasingly obvious that we are living under the same sort of authoritarianism, in this case, led by the world's social media platforms.

  

In its latest move to destroy any narrative that doesn't follow its preferred version of the pandemic and accompanying vaccine rollout, YouTube, a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google's parent company, has made the following announcement:

 

 

Here are some highlights:

 

"Crafting policy around medical misinformation comes charged with inherent challenges and tradeoffs. Scientific understanding evolves as new research emerges, and firsthand, personal experience regularly plays a powerful role in online discourse. Vaccines in particular have been a source of fierce debate over the years, despite consistent guidance from health authorities about their effectiveness. Today, we're expanding our medical misinformation policies on YouTube with new guidelines on currently administered vaccines that are approved and confirmed to be safe and effective by local health authorities and the WHO.

 

Our Community Guidelines already prohibit certain types of medical misinformation. We've long removed content that promotes harmful remedies, such as saying drinking turpentine can cure diseases. At the onset of COVID-19, we built on these policies when the pandemic hit, and worked with experts to develop 10 new policies around COVID-19 and medical misinformation. Since last year, we’ve removed over 130,000 videos for violating our COVID-19 vaccine policies."

 

Notice how proud YouTube is of its ability to remove over 130,000 videos.  Way to go, YouTube!

 

So, what is being banned?

  

"...content that falsely alleges that approved vaccines are dangerous and cause chronic health effects, claims that vaccines do not reduce transmission or contraction of disease, or contains misinformation on the substances contained in vaccines will be removed. This would include content that falsely says that approved vaccines cause autism, cancer or infertility, or that substances in vaccines can track those who receive them. Our policies not only cover specific routine immunizations like for measles or Hepatitis B, but also apply to general statements about vaccines."

 

YouTube claims that they have consulted with local and international health organizations and other experts when designing their program of antivaccine censorship.  I'm guessing that the World Health Organization aka the Bill Gates Health Organization was part of the team which helped establish YouTube's guidelines.

 

Not to worry though, YouTube is still allowing content that is important to the ongoing debate regarding vaccines and will allow the following:

 

"...we will continue to allow content about vaccine policies, new vaccine trials, and historical vaccine successes or failures on YouTube. Personal testimonials relating to vaccines will also be allowed, so long as the video doesn't violate other Community Guidelines, or the channel doesn't show a pattern of promoting vaccine hesitancy."

 

Given that absolutely no scientist has a complete picture of both the harms and protections offered by the COVID-19 vaccines since Phase 3 trials are not scheduled for completion for at least the next year, YouTube certainly seems to have cornered the market on "vaccine truth".

 

Just in case you cared, here is YouTube's newly crafted Vaccine information policy:

 

Joseph Goebbels would be utterly amazed at how easily the social media platforms of the new millennium have been at crafting a narrative that suits their own version of reality.  Unfortunately, YouTube hadn't quite come to the realization that controlling the vaccine narrative is not necessarily in its best interest business wise.  Thanks to YouTube's increasingly heavy-handed censorship, a number of alternative media platforms (i.e. Bitchute, Odysee etcetera) have appeared where censorship is non-existent, allowing determined physicians and researchers to spread their message to the masses.  I hate to tell YouTube, but the world can live without videos of cats and car accidents.

Rewriting History the Wikipedia Way - The Cancel Culture Strikes Again

It's become increasingly clear over the past two years that social networking platforms are rewriting history.  One such platform, Wikipedia which claims that it has the goal of making all knowledge accessible to everyone, everywhere, is guilty as charged as you will see in this posting.

  

While many of you may not have heard of Dr. Robert W. Malone, he has become quite vocal during the vaccination stage of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Let's start this posting by looking at his credentials starting with his work experience, noting in particular his three years at the Salk Institute when he was a graduate student between 1986 and 1989:

 

Here is his educational background:

 

Keeping in mind his work experience at the Salk Institute, here is a paper on RNA transfection, the synthesis of mRNA and how RNA could be directly introduced into whole tissues and embryos (i.e. as a drug) from August 1989 where he is the lead author:

Note that I have provided you with screen captures of this entire document since these sorts of documents have a habit of disappearing from the internet during the current post-truth era.

  

This paper formed the foundation for the use of RNA as a drug as shown in this final quote from the paper:

 

"The RNA/lipofectin method can be used to directly introduce RNA into whole tissues and embryos (R.W.M., C. Holt, and I.M.V., unpublished results), raising the possibility that liposome-mediated mRNA transfection might offer yet another option in the growing technology of eukaryotic gene delivery, one based on the concept of using RNA as a drug.”

 

You will also note that funding for this research was provided by grants from the National Institutes of Health (think Anthony Fauci) which now has a stake in Moderna's mRNA vaccine and the American Cancer Society since it was believed that this technology could be a cure for cancer.

 

Now, let's look at how Wikipedia has altered history for us.  Here is what the RNA vaccine entry looked like on August 14, 2021:

 

Notice that Robert Malone's name appears three times in the Wikipedia entry and leads the section on RNA vaccine history.  Here are the key excerpts from this Wikipedia entry:

 

"In 1989, Robert W. Malone, P. Felgner, et. al. developed a high-efficiency in-vitro and in-vivo RNA transfection system using cationic liposomes, which were used "to directly introduce RNA into whole tissues and embryos", as well as various cells types. The term and idea of "RNA as a drug" is first described in this paper.  Then, in 1990, Jon A. Wolff, Robert W Malone, et. al. demonstrated the idea of nucleic acid-encoded drugs by direct injecting in vitro transcribed (IVT) mRNA or plasmid DNA (pDNA) into the skeletal muscle of mice which expressed the encoded protein in the injected muscle. These studies were the first evidence that in vitro transcribed (IVT) mRNA could deliver the genetic information to produce proteins within living cell tissue.

 

The first mRNA vaccine experiments were carried out by P. Felgner, J. Wolff, G. Rhodes, R.W. Malone and D. Carson. P. They completed a number of mRNA vaccination studies that resulted in nine patents on mRNA vaccination with a shared priority date of March 21, 1989." 

 

Now, let's look at Wikipedia's current entry for RNA vaccines:

 

The only mention of Robert Malone is found in the fine print in the references section of the Wikipedia entry.  His name has been totally removed from the "History" part of the entry.  He has, in Orwellian speak, become a nonperson as you can see here:

 

"The first successful transfection of mRNA packaged within a liposomal nanoparticle into a cell was published in 1989. "Naked" (or unprotected) mRNA was injected a year later into the muscle of mice.  These studies were the first evidence that in vitro transcribed mRNA could deliver the genetic information to produce proteins within living cell tissue and led to the concept proposal of messenger RNA vaccines."

Just in case you wondered, this is why Robert Malone achieved the distinction of being cancelled by Twitter, an article that is well worth reading but which I cannot share here because this posting would likely be cancelled by the Google Gods:

His warnings about the use of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic would seem to have scientific merit and, given the fact that research is now showing that the "protection" provided by these vaccines seem to be of very short duration along with the massive list of adverse events accompanying vaccination, his warnings would be something well worth paying attention to.

So, there you have it.  Apparently, even being a brilliant scientist and having a career that has resulted in leading-edge research doesn't mean that you don't have the potential to become part of the social platform cancel culture that has become prevalent during the pandemic.  After all, what does Dr. Robert Malone really know?  Surely, the backers of Wikipedia which prides itself on leading the democratization of knowledge know far more than a medical researcher with more than 35 years of experience in the field.

Post 9/11 Spending by the Pentagon

In a recent posting, I looked at the high budgetary and human costs of the 20 year-long War on Terror.  Once again, thanks to the Watson Institute, we have access to research which shows how profitable the war has been for the defense industry.  Let's look at some of the highlights of the report.

  

Since the beginning of the War on Terror in the fall of 2001, there have been dramatic increases in funding for the Pentagon as shown on this graphic:

 

The trillions of budgetary dollars have found a nice, cozy home in the pockets of America's defence contractors.  Companies have three main ways to benefit from the ongoing war economy:

  

1.) supplying weapons

 

2.) private security contracting

 

3.) logistics and reconstruction

 

The surge in defense spending began immediately after the attacks on September 11, 2001 with the Pentagon's budget (base budget plus the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account increasing by over 10 percent in the first year after the attacks and the beginning of the war in Afghanistan followed by incra succession of year-over-year increases for and unprecedented 10 years in a row.  Spending by the Pentagon peaked in 2010 at over $800 billion in 2021 dollars, its highest level since World War II, rising by nearly one-third over the period from 2001 to 2010.  As well, the increase in the Pentagon's spending between Fiscal 2002 and Fiscal 2003 was more than the entire military budget of any other nation including Russia and China.

  

Since Fiscal 2001, total Pentagon spending for all purposes reached $14.1 trillion (in 2021 dollars) with $4.4 trillion being spent on weapons, procurement and research and development, categories that directly benefit the defense industry.  The remaining funds of $9.7 trillion were spent on pay and benefits for military and civilian personnel and expenditures required to operate and maintain the United States military.

Let's go back to the $4.4 trillion that was funnelled to the U.S. defense industry.  One-quarter to one-third of all Pentagon contracts in recent years have gone to five major weapons contractors; Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman.  From Fiscal 2001 to Fiscal 2020, these five companies split $2.1 trillion (in 2021 dollars) worth of contracts between them.  

Here is a table showing the total value of the contracts issued to these five companies for Fiscal 2020 and Fiscal 2021 alone:

 

These five companies supplied most of the combat aircraft, attack and transport helicopters, armoured vehicles, bombs and missiles used in both Afghanistan and Iraq.  In total, between Fiscal 2001 and Fiscal 2010, the pentagon spent more than $1 trillion on weapons and services (including the purchasing of an entirely new generation of armoured vehicles) with nearly 25 percent of that spending sourced from supplemental funding which was intended to support the war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.  A 2016 study by Action on Armed Violence found that the Pentagon had also issued contracts for $40 billion worth of guns and ammunition between September 2001 and September 2015 which included the provision of 1.452 million guns to Iraq and Afghanistan as shown here, noting that the DoD is unable to account for hundreds of thousands of guns that it sent to both nations, including 190,000 AK-47s:

 

One other significant area of spending was associated with the increasing use of private military contractors which supplied the Pentagon with logistics and reconstruction.  Given the chaos present int eh war zone, the massive volume of funding supplied by the Pentagon and the lack of government oversight, an environment which enabled massive fraud, waste and abuse was created.  One of the largest suppliers of contractors was Halliburton through its Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) subsidiaries.  KBR received an opened arrangement from the Pentagon's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program to coordinate support functions for troops in the field including setting up military bases and supplying them with food and laundry services to maintain equipment.  These contracts grew ten-fold between Fiscal 2002 and Fiscal 2006 and by August 2009 the company had received over $30 billion in funding from the PentagonA December 2003 report showed that KBR had overcharged the Pentagon by tens of millions of dollars for fuel.  In addition, the Director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency  testified in 2009, that after auditing $1.2 billion in Diining Facility Costs from KBR, that he took exception to approximately $352 million of the total because KBR was billing the Pentagon for meals that were not actually provided.  Other companies were also guilty of price gouging; the International Oil Trading Company which received $2.7 billion worth of contracts to supply fuel was found guilty of overcharging the Pentaong for fuel it brought into Iraq which netted a profit of #200 million on sales of $1.4 billion between 2004 and 2008, one-third of which went to its owner, Harry Sargeant III who just happened to serve as the finance chairman of Florida's Republican Party.

 

Here is an interesting example of another company that "played the game":

 

Other examples include:

 

1.)  a U.S.-appointed economic task force that spent $43 million on a gas station that was never used, another $150 million on lavish living quarters for U.S. economic advisors, and $3 million for patrol boats for the Afghan police that were also never used

2.) a Congressional investigation found that a significant portion of $2 billion worth of transportation contracts to U.S. and Afghan firms ended up as kickbacks to warlords, police officials, or payments to the Taliban, sometimes as much as $1,500 per truck, or up to half a million dollars for each large convoy of 300 trucks.

 

Let's close with this quote from the paper's recommendations:

 

"Reining in excess profits for weapons contractors, preventing waste, fraud and abuse, and increasing transparency and accountability over private firms involved in conducting or preparing for war involves three major types of initiatives.

 

1.) reduce spending on war and preparations for war in line with a more modern, realistic defense strategy. A new strategy should increase the role of diplomacy, focus on emerging and persistent non-military security challenges, and reduce direct and indirect foreign military interventions of the type the United States has engaged in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Yemen and so many places beyond. The Center for International Policy’s Sustainable Defense Task Force has outlined an approach that could save over $1.2 trillion over the next decade by adopting a more realistic approach to the challenges posed by Russia and China; relying more on allies to address security risks in their own regions; pursuing diplomatic solutions to actual and potential nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea; rolling back the Pentagon’s $1.7 trillion, three decade long nuclear rearmament program; and cutting excess bureaucracy, including reducing the Pentagon’s employment of over 600,000 private contract personnel

  

2.) more rigorous monitoring and regulation of spending including strengthening the role of inspectors general, auditors, and contracting officers in rooting out corruption and negotiating fair prices with corporate suppliers of everything from spare parts to finished weapons systems; and increasing transparency in Pentagon spending, including getting the department’s financial house in order so that it can finally pass an audit.

 

3.) measures to reduce the political power of arms manufacturers including reforming public financing of elections and other initiatives to reduce the value of private money in the political process, and curbs on the revolving door between government and industry. Revolving door reforms should include imposing longer cooling off periods between government service and employment in the arms industry, closing loopholes in current laws, and increasing detailed reporting on revolving door employment and the post-government activities of personnel who move from Congress, the Pentagon, and other key agencies to positions in the defense sector.104 In addition, think tanks should be transparent about funding sources and identify potential conflicts of interest tied to corporate donations.

 

If Washington were really serious about reducing the profiteering from war, it would take steps to reduce the incentive to go to war in the first place but we all know that this is never going to happen given this:

...and this:

How Protected Are the Fully Vaccinated Individuals?

A recent brief article which appeared in the British Medical Journal does a rather neat job of summarizing the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines sourced from research in the United Kingdom which has not yet been peer reviewed.  Since the BMJ is allowing for free usage of the article during the pandemic, I will simply quote it in its entirety for accuracy's sake.  Please note that all bolds are mine.

 

"Adults who have been fully vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 can carry the same viral load of the delta variant as those who are unvaccinated, a preliminary analysis of UK data suggests.

 

The latest results from the UK’s national covid-19 infection survey show that having two vaccine doses remains the most effective way to ensure protection against delta. But, although people who are fully vaccinated have a lower risk of becoming infected, those infected with the delta variant can carry similar virus levels as unvaccinated people, the data show. The authors said the implications for transmission were not yet clear but suggested that the potential for fully vaccinated individuals to transmit the virus to others would make achieving herd immunity more of a challenge.

 

Sarah Walker, professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at the University of Oxford and chief investigator of the survey, said, “We don’t yet know how much transmission can happen from people who get covid-19 after being vaccinated—for example, they may have high levels of virus for shorter periods of time.

 

“But the fact that they can have high levels of virus suggests that people who aren’t yet vaccinated may not be as protected from the delta variant as we hoped. This means it is essential for as many people as possible to get vaccinated—both in the UK and worldwide.”

 

The analysis, published as a preprint and not yet peer reviewed, found that the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines both offered good protection against new infections but that performance was less good against delta than with the previously dominant alpha variant.

 

The researchers analysed 2 580 021 results from swabs taken from 384 543 adults between 1 December 2020 and 16 May 2021, when the alpha variant predominated, and 811 624 results from 358 983 adults between 17 May and 1 August 2021, when delta prevailed. Two doses of either vaccine provided at least the same level of protection as that afforded through natural infection with the virus. For example, when delta prevailed, efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine was 80% (95% confidence interval 77% to 83%) at 14 or more days after two doses, higher than after two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine (67% (62% to 71%)) but not significantly different from the protection afforded by natural immunity in non-vaccinated people who had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (72% (58% to 82%)).

 

The effectiveness of the two vaccines did not depend on the time between first and second doses. But people who were vaccinated after they had had covid-19 had more protection from vaccination than those who were vaccinated without a previous natural infection. For example, 14 days after a second AstraZeneca dose, on average the rates of all new covid-19 infections had dropped by 88% among those with prior infection, which compared with 68% in those without prior infection. The percentages were 93% and 85%, respectively, for the Pfizer vaccine.

 

Speaking at a Science Media Centre briefing, Koen Pouwels, of Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Population Health and the report’s lead author, emphasised the protective effect of vaccination in people with a high SARS-CoV-2 viral burden. He said that vaccine protection was 90% higher than in unvaccinated people one month after a second Pfizer vaccine, declining to 85% after two months and 78% after three months. For the AstraZeneca vaccine the equivalent protection was 67%, 65%, and 61%, respectively.

 

“Even with these slight declines in protection against all infections and infections with high viral burden, it’s important to note that overall effectiveness is still very high, because we were starting at such a high level of protection,” Pouwels said.

 

The study also showed that viral burden was lower immediately after two Pfizer doses but that it increased faster with time than after the AstraZeneca vaccine, leading to similar levels of viral burden around three months after second doses of both vaccines.

 

Commenting on the findings, the University of East Anglia’s Paul Hunter noted, “There is now quite a lot of evidence that all vaccines are much better at reducing the risk of severe disease than they are at reducing the risk from infection. We now know that vaccination will not stop infection and transmission, [but it does] reduce the risk. The main value of immunisation is in reducing the risk of severe disease and death.”"

 

Given that many lay people believe that the COVID-19 vaccines provide long-term and full immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, this research is rather illuminating since it shows that, three months after vaccination, the protection wanes to 78 percent for the Pfizer vaccine and only 61 percent for the AstraZeneca vaccine.  Since the researchers only looked at the effectiveness of the vaccine for the first three months after the second dose, it is clear that longer term studies are needed to see if the protection afforded by the COVID-19 vaccines wanes even further with time.  For all of those wishing death upon the unvaccinated, it is also interesting to see that the vaccines will not stop transmission but, at this point in time, it appears that they do reduce the risk of severe disease and death although the science on that issue is not yet complete.

Let's close with this thought.  Since governments are implementing vaccine passports to prevent the "unclean" unvaccinated among us from transmitting the SARS-CoV-2 virus to the "clean" vaccinated, it would certainly appear that this research would imply that such measures are meaningless since the vaccines do not stop infection and transmission, rather, the injections will only provide a reduction in the risk of severe disease and death (which also have not been proven and may be difficult to quantify) which is not what governments and their mainstream media lackeys would have us believe.

The Relationship Between Preexisting Medical Conditions and COVID-19 in the United States

A recent peer reviewed analysis that appeared on the Centers for Disease Control looked at underlying medical conditions and severe illness (aka comorbidities/preexisting medical conditions) that were found in American adults aged 18 and over who were hospitalized with COVID-19 between March 2020 and March 2021.  The study used health records from more than 800 U.S. hospitals for 4,899,447 adults, 540,677 who were patients with COVID-19.  Let's look at the analysis

 

Here is the title page of the research showing the names of the authors:

 

 

Let's open this posting with a quote from the introduction which outlines the limits of previous studies:

 

"As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, a need remains to under- stand indicators for severe illness, defined as admission to an in- tensive care unit (ICU) or stepdown unit, invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV), or death. Several underlying medical conditions among adults, including diabetes, obesity, chronic kidney disease (CKD), hypertension, and immunosuppression, have been reported to be associated with increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19. However, many existing studies are limited in geographic representation, restricted to cases early in the outbreak, or focused on a limited number of preselected conditions and/or severe outcomes. Finally, few studies have shown the effect of the number of underlying medical conditions on the risk for severe COVID-19 illness.

 

Both the baseline prevalence of a condition and the magnitude of its association with COVID-19 illness help determine the impact of a condition at a population level. This study, based on a large electronic administrative discharge data set, sought to describe the most frequent underlying medical conditions among hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and their associations with severe illness. This information can better inform clinical practice and public health priorities, such as identifying populations for focused prevention efforts and potential vaccine prioritization."

  

The authors used the Premier Healthcare Database Special COVID-19 Release dated May 11, 2021, a large, US hospital-based, all-payer database.  The sample, as noted above, included patients aged 18 years and older who had an inpatient diagnosis of COVID-19 between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021.  The median age of patients was 66 years, with 48.3 percent being female, 17.5 percent being non-Hispanic Blacks and 17.2 percent being Hispanic or Latino.

 

The authors examined three indicators of severe COVID-19 illness:

 

1.) admission to an ICU or step-down unit - 46.2 percent of patients in the study

 

2.) intermittent mandatory ventilation (which is defined as  a type of control mode ventilation in which the patient breathe spontaneously while the ventilator delivers a prescribed tidal volume at specified intervals and allows the patient to breathe spontaneously between cycles. The ventilator rate is set to maintain the patient's PaCO2 at desired levels and is reduced gradually to zero as the patient's condition improves) -  14.2 percent of patients in the study

  

3.) death - 14.8 percent of patients in the study

 

The authors considered each patient's specific underlying medical conditions and the number of these conditions.  The They used a multistep approach to identify the underlying medical conditions and selected the most frequent conditions (of which there were 18) which had a prevalence of ten percent or more in the sample.

 

Let's look at what the authors found.  Here is a bar graph showing the prevalence of the most frequent underlying medical conditions in the sample:

 

The top five preexisting medical conditions are as follows:

 

1.) hypertension (high blood pressure)

  

2.) disorders of lipid metabolism (which most of us would associate with high cholesterol) - 49.4 percent of patients 

 

3.) Obesity - 33 percent of patients

 

4.) Diabetes with complications - 31.8 percent of patients

 

5.) coronary atherosclerosis and other heart disease - 24.9 percent of patients 

 

To put these numbers into perspective, the percentage of the United States adult population known to have two or more medical conditions ranges from 38 percent to 64 percent, depending on the persons' state of residence.

 

The authors also calculated the relative risk of death in relation to the associated medical condition:

 

1.) 30 percent higher for patients with obesity

 

2.) 28 percent higher for patients with anxiety and fear-related disorders

 

3.) 26 percent higher with diabetes with complications

 

4.) 18 percent higher with neurocognitive disorders including dementia and Alzheimgers

 

5.) 18 percent higher with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and bronchiectasis

 

6.) 14 percent higher with coronary atherosclerosis and other heart disease

  

Compared to patients with no documented underlying medical conditions, patients' risk of death increased based on the number of underlying medical conditions that they had as follows:

 

1.) one condition - 1.53 times greater

 

2.) two to five conditions - 2.55 times greater

 

3.) six to ten conditions - 3.29 times greater

 

4.) more than ten conditions - 3.82 times greater

 

Most importantly, the authors found the following for patients that died (median age of 74 years):

 

1.) only 0.9 percent had zero underlying medical conditions

 

2.) 2.86 percent had one underlying medical condition

 

3.) 32.3 percent had two to five underlying medical conditions

 

4.) 39.1 percent had six to ten underlying medical conditions

 

5.) 25.1 percent had more than ten underlying medical conditions

 

Here is a table showing the key data, noting that I have highlighted the relationship between the number of conditions and age as it relates to death among those hospitalized with COVID-19:

 

As you can see, in the United States, those who were hospitalized for COVID-19 were more likely to die if they had a high number of pre-existing medical conditions.  Interestingly, the three factors that were most common among those who were hospitalized for COVID-19 are all related to obesity (including obesity itself) and, given its prevalence among the adult American population, this factor may go a long way to explaining the high number of deaths associated with COVID-19 in the United States as shown on these two graphs from the CDC: