Where have all the heart attacks gone?

Duke said:

oldopelguy (Forum Supporter) said:

The conspiracy theorists would say that the numbers aren't really down, they're just blaming every death on Covid now instead...

That's not even a conspiracy theory:

Tuesday's White House press conference said:

There are other countries that if you had a pre-existing condition and let’s say the virus caused you to go to the ICU and then have a heart or kidney problem — some countries are recording that as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death.  Right now, we’re still recording it, [...] if someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death.

 So, there's that.

 

Just to throw out a little thought experiment:  there are currently about 400K coronavirus cases in the U.S., and there about 330M people in the U.S., so there are about 1.2 people PER THOUSAND who have it.  If you guys honestly think that 0.0012 of the people with compromising cardiac issues is seriously skewing the number heart attack cases down, or the number of COVID-19 deaths up, then I don't know what to tell you except that a remedial math course is probably in order.  Sorry to sound rude but it's annoying when the conspiracy theorists and political propagandists are trying to make hay with something when the hard numbers are telling a very different story.  

JB

JBinMD said:

Duke said:

oldopelguy (Forum Supporter) said:

The conspiracy theorists would say that the numbers aren't really down, they're just blaming every death on Covid now instead...

That's not even a conspiracy theory:

Tuesday's White House press conference said:

There are other countries that if you had a pre-existing condition and let’s say the virus caused you to go to the ICU and then have a heart or kidney problem — some countries are recording that as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death.  Right now, we’re still recording it, [...] if someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death.

 So, there's that.

 

Just to throw out a little thought experiment:  there are currently about 400K coronavirus cases in the U.S., and there about 330M people in the U.S., so there are about 1.2 people PER THOUSAND who have it.  If you guys honestly think that 0.0012 of the people with compromising cardiac issues is seriously skewing the number heart attack cases down, or the number of COVID-19 deaths up, then I don't know what to tell you except that a remedial math course is probably in order.  Sorry to sound rude but it's annoying when the conspiracy theorists and political propagandists are trying to make hay with something when the hard numbers are telling a very different story.  

JB

 

The "you are dumb because you don't understand numbers" argument is better with good numbers. You state: "400k coronavirus cases in the US"  and "0.0012 of the population have coronavirus". The more valid comparison isn't coronavirus to the entire population, but coronavirus to the number of heart attack deaths.  According to this CDC page 800k people die annually from "heart disease" in the US. 800k/12months=66,667. 67k heart disease deaths and 400k coronavirus cases are actually close enough to matter. It is even closer if you compare the 67k heart disease deaths with the ~15k coronavirus deaths. Heck, the "heart disease deaths" stat includes heart attacks and strokes so if you take it down to just heart attacks the numbers are probably really really close. Gasp! 

I honestly don't have a side in this argument except for defending people I consider friends who are getting called dumb.

If it is possible to attribute to attribute to CCP virus, CDC says that is what you are to do.  Also, telemedicine is less efficient way to diagnose cardiovascular symptoms, and many have gone to that as a result of the lockdown.

Additionally, Mr Joshua does not have a good grasp of how epidemiology.works

In reply to Toebra :

Explain? I am not cause and effecting heart attacks and Coronavirus. I am playing with the stats JBinMD used to say there is no relationship between coronavirus stats and heart attack stats. He claimed the numbers are so far apart that there is no way one can effect the other. Using the same type of math you can see the expected numbers of heart attack deaths are pretty close to the number of recorded coronavirus deaths. That is all I wanted to show. I understand that doesn't really prove anything.

Sorry, I misread the chain of quotes.  JB does not have a good grip on epidemiology

Say we assume 30k of the 67k heart disease deaths are heart attacks. 

The thread title says heart attacks down by 40-60%. So 15k per month.

That's still too large of a number to have covid be accounting for the entire change. Right?

John Welsh (Forum Supporter) said:

Possibly a lot less fast food and restaurant food. 

That's like saying I haven't changed my oil in 7 years but I did 2 weeks ago so no excessive wear occurred.

Billy Baconator eating oatmeal at home a couple times the last few weeks still has arteries clogged from 40 years of neglect so I don't think they all healed themselves.

In reply to crankwalk :

That was my thought as well. But since the statistics prolly don’t actually tell us anything, I wasn’t too concerned. 

Confirmed with my buddy, married to the on call cardiologist at Seattle hospitals, that business in the heart attack realm is noticeably down.

Heard that alcoholism and domestic violence have both spiked though.

Wife and I were curious how porn viewing may be effected. More people with free ... time on their hands combined with being home with family and spouses increasing the risk of being caught.

Ok, I finally have a computer I can use freely without too many interruptions.....

Yes, overall MI cases are down. What is the contributing factor? They are coming into the ED door as cardiac arrests, per EMS radio traffic I hear at the nurses station, or are using more PCP/telehealth services. The typical person having "chest pain" is actually waiting until symptoms either improve or get worse. They are also being told seemingly wait for additional symptoms. About half of the STEMI's I've encountered, are atypical from the "elephant sitting on their chest" or the shortness of breath/SOB. 

Yes, the CDC is cooking the numbers, but at the same time, no cardiologist or CT surgeon is going to operate on a probable "Death eating a cracker" patient. They are fix the pt off the virus and maybe I can do something for them when they recover. Remember to have a cardiac cath done, you have to lay still for about 90 minutes, no coughing, no scratching your nose, no nothing. So, to facilitate that with this patient population, you are going to have to intubate them, which just exposes more people to the virus. Same with a CABG, or coronary artery bypass graft.

But, as I sit here typing this reply out in the ED, overall case volume is down across the board. Mostly stupid E36 M3 that you or I would stay at home for and treat ourselves. I do believe that most of what isn't coming in as MI's are at home but without the daily stress now with most everything shut down. So they are buying time for it to happen later. JMO.

Sincerely,

One berkeleying tired ED nurse.