Knucklesammich said:

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planoaggie123 said:

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Salute The Marines said:

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SoupNazi2001 said:

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Notice they are all morbidly obese. Biggest high risk factor. Easiest Covid prevention is to get in shape.

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The easiest covid hospitalization prevention is to get vaccinated. It's fee and it's two jabs. It doesn't get easier than that.

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This is just wrong. Marcus has said it is "by far" the biggest factor is obesity...and not just slightly obese but morbidly obese

We should not, as a society, look for medical cures to fight off the results of a lazy / obese society. Doing basic things like eating healthy, walking outside, etc could easily shave off a large portion of the deaths we have seen from this. However, you and others would suggest the easiest thing to do is wait for scientists to create a vaccine and inject.

To clarify just how FAT morbidly obese is....at my hight of 5'10' / 5'11' i would need to gain 120 - 130 pounds to hit the 280 mark to put me at the low end of morbid obesity. I am by no means a stick figure either....

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He's saying the biggest risk factor for those in the hospital is obesity; however, only one of his patients currently is not vaccinated. So either obese people aren't getting vaccinated or he isn't seeing obese people that are vaccinated in hospital in his area.

I think both sides of this can be true. We as a country need to be less fat for a whole host of reasons and being vaccinated helps mitigate not only the risk of infection but the risk of serious infection requiring a stay in the hospital.

For the record I'm heavier than I should be and I'm vaccinated. COVID has helped drive me to change my eating habits and get out and sweat more so that's a good thing.

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Correcting your typo here.

Good catch, not enough coffee this AM.

What's the latest, doc? (Marcus)

What is morbidly obese defined as? A BMI threshold or a percent body fat level?

The_Fox said:

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If your BMI is over 30 and it is not due to muscle
mass, you need to get in shape. No excuses.

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While I'm not there now at one point in my life I had a BMI of 35'ish at 6'3" 280 with visible abs and a 35" waist. I was also a college athlete at the time.

My younger brother is 5'11" 220 right now which is over 30. He's also a former college athlete and has visible abs right now at 41. Being divorced and remarrying a woman almost 10 years younger will do that.

Point being, while BMI is an indicator it's not the be all, end all. I haz the fats today and am working on it but reliance on BMI is dumb.

Hats off to y'all for making the conscious decision and executing on dropping lbs. Best thing you can do for long term health along with staying active.

Thanks for what you do.

Marcus Aurelius said:

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billyjack2009 said:

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What's the latest, doc? (Marcus)

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It's exploding here and at my hospital. 2 units almost full with it now. Very discouraging. Same type pts as I posted in the OP.

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Of the unvaccinated covid patients, would it be possible for you to ballpark the race/ethnicities? Say on a percentage basis?

From the people I know and what I have seen as recently as last night between Hoover and Trussville I wouldn't expect that to change

Haven't skipped a beat at work since the beginning. Over 500 people whose average age is about 45 and in a outdoor/indoor setting. Worse it got was about 10 people who popped positive about a year ago. Of course many more were sent home for precautionary reasons. Masks haven't been mandated for the last 6 months too.

are patients on average worse off than they were during the surge last year?

Marcus Aurelius said:

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Well ea city/are demographics are different. But I'd say the cast majority are Caucasian now. It was many more AAs in Jan 2021 and last spring and summer.

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Thanks for the updates.

In the top post you said you weren't seeing any delta variant. Is that still true?

We've had a couple - requires send out test. majority here original virus - detected on rtPCR assay

planoaggie123 said:

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Good point.

We see it in the swimsuit magazines etc.

I like in a decent little area (where you would expect people can afford / choose to eat healthy-ish) and it makes me sick to my stomach when I see families walking around where both parents are significantly obese and their kids are significantly "bigger" than their peers. Talk about an ignored health crisis. When I was a kid just being slightly big was abnormal but now it is more and more common among kids....

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Then you add in the oft-joked about "quarantine 15" from early pandemic 2020 days on top of what was already prevalent and you've got all of the kindling you need for lots of bad outcomes. I'm sure it's been difficult to get accurate data re: weight gain (or loss) during the pandemic because it relies on honest responses to surveys, and people lie about/minimize the hell of their weight issues.

planoaggie123 said:

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Just typing this it brings back such pathetic memories of walking around our neighborhood and having people literally slow jog to the other side of the road if they saw someone coming near.

We lost our minds on this. We lost our way. We lost the ability to self-think and self-decide. We have given government way too much power / authority.

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Yeah, seeing people duck out of the way as I passed by them while walking was just odd, but when you take a captive audience and proceed to scare the **** out of them day after day after day, it's a predictable outcome.

...which leads to your second point. A frightened populace is a more easily controlled populace.

Ol Jock 99 said:

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Quote:

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Bottom line is to know your numbers and get vaccine if at risk-- and as already mentioned work on improving your overall health status.

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FIFY

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LOL.

KidDoc said:

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I really think this wave is going to hit the 40-60 year primarily male population that doesn't go to the doctor and has no idea how obese they are, don't know their blood pressure, A1C, or lipid panels. There is a real cultural issue where middle aged men refuse to seek routine care due to a macho man aspect that makes them want to ignore health risks. This same population refuses to get vaccine because they are invincible.

This also becomes a huge economic problem. A 75+ year old dying has minimal economic impact as they are usually retired with no dependents. If a significant number of 40-60 year old males die it is a huge impact on productivity and on their dependents.

Bottom line is to know your numbers and get vaccine if at risk-- and as already mentioned work on improving your overall health status.

(For the record I'm late 40s male, mild obese, and I know my numbers and got vaccine).

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I'm in that cohort. Sort of.

44, 6'3" and obese per BMI- I fully admit I'm fat and need to lose a lot. That being said I still would have been considered obese when I was still a college athlete and had approximately 11% bodyfat. Managing my weight has been an ongoing issue for years in large part due to severe injuries to my knees (I'm bone-on-bone in both knees) which causes varying levels of pain on a daily basis depending on activity.

Anyway, I'm on top of a lot of things with my doc. BP is solid- consistently in the 120-130'ish over mid-70s, cholesterol is below 150, but A1C was elevated. That's been reduced substantially through diet and exercise and I'm due to recheck that soon. O-positive blood type.

Rightly or wrongly, I'm not really tracking my weight at the moment. I know I've lost weight but I'm not sure how much. But because of my knees my exercise routine/weekly goals are:
- swim 5 miles per week (I didn't swim as much as I should have Monday morning so I've made it up yesterday and today)
- 25km per week on the rowing machine
- 100 pushups, crunches, air-squats daily

I don't lift weights anymore. I don't need to bench 485 anymore and my knees and back don't like a lot of those motions. I'll do some more total body stuff with a kettlebell like Turkish get-ups and kettlebell swings but not heavy at all.

Really got into this routine after I had covid.

I had covid right after Thanksgiving and got it from my wife who got it from her gym (she does the F45 workouts 3-4x/week). She had a mild headache and lost her sense of smell for a couple weeks or so. I was fatigued and felt really beat up for about 36 hours. That was it. We did not isolate from our boys (10 & 6 at the time, older one just turned 11 and the younger will be 7 later this month) and they never exhibited a single symptom. Apart from a couple ear infections here and there that kids get neither one has been sick with anything either. Neither the wife nor I have had any other illness whatsoever since at least early-March 2020 (can't really recall before then).

Had extensive discussion on the vaccine with my PCP (he's actually team physician for the Texans) and his message was "I'm telling my high-risk patients to absolutely get vaccinated. I'm not going to tell you to not get vaccinated because you're at a moderate risk. However, because you had covid and still have antibodies you're at a very low risk now so you can make your own decision."

Marcus Aurelius said:

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Just did a tour of ICUs. We have around 72 ICU rooms. Currently 3 open. Those being reserved for covid. It sucks because once again it is a terrible time to have garden variety severe illness/surgery and require an ICU bed. IMO that is the biggest problem when covid is this bad again at this point (or any time for that matter). Elective procedures still ongoing.

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Comorbidities or just fatties?

Marcus Aurelius said:

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Mixture. Alot of younger people. Eye opening. Seems opposite of original outbreak.

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Young people? As in young men like would be in a Marine infantry company or division 1 athletes?

ha no. but definitely younger crowd this wave.