Just got my shot this morning...I’m a front line ICU RN with 12 beds out of 32 reserved in my unit for covids.
Interesting enough at any one time all of our reserved icu covid beds aren’t always full and when full, not all are true ICU grade patients but often half are medical telemetry or step down holds as the tele step down covid beds are full. We see a lot of churn,increased covid admissions at night and a flurry of transfers to lesser levels of care or even discharges to home in the day shifts. We seem to average about 4-6 at any one time who are true icu respiratory covid pt’s on vents or continuous bipap. We lose 60 percent of those.
It isn’t who you’d think. I can’t tell you how many 70 to 94 year old white women come in COVID 19 positive with some respiratory symptoms and some ferritin increases but they get better in a day and transfer out or even leave for home or back to their living facility, but 35 to 60 year old something black and hispanic men and women suffer worse and many pass away. Most of the women in this group do tend to suffer longer but do tend to recover over time vs the males who decline worse to worse than pass away. It’s the co-morbidities that Covid 19 aggravates that end up taking these minorities out.
Next in line are the white males 50 to 80’s or older... again the co-morbidities seem to be a factor in taking them out in most cases.
I haven’t seen a very healthy person with no co-morbidities of any race who comes to the ICU, die yet... but some get get very close and some will have some lingering after effects for a while after they get...”better”.
It’s like covid 19 acts like the ultimate stress tester of one’s bodily systems...one chink in the armor and boom the disease can wipe you out.
Your description of the fatalities makes me worry slightly less about my Mom: 90 y/o and "frail but reasonably healthy" except she takes meds for BP (Losartan [might actually help prevent COVID-19?] and Carvedilol), for restless leg, anxiety, pain (due to extreme arthritis), and incontinence. Plus some vitamins. But, now I worry a bit more about myself: I'm also reasonably healthy, and in my case fairly active, but I can tell my immune system is not quite what it once was, my endurance (as when running) is certainly down, and yeah, ideally I would lose 5-10 lbs.
I haven’t seen a very healthy person with no co-morbidities of any race who comes to the ICU, die yet... but some get get very close and some will have some lingering after effects for a while after they get...”better”.
Emphasis mine. These long lingering effects have happened to a few friends, two fairly severely. I think many FReepers do not consider that this happens even to healthy patients, and probably more so to less healthy people who nonetheless are not fatalities. Not that it should surprise anyone - Flu can do the same thing, as it (or actually the pneumonia it opened the door for) did to my brother.
It’s like covid 19 acts like the ultimate stress tester of one’s bodily systems...one chink in the armor and boom the disease can wipe you out.
Or perhaps more precisely, "It’s like covid 19 acts like the ultimate stress tester of one’s bodily systems...it weakens you, then, one chink in the armor and boom the disease allies can wipe you out."??
The cases from my church were a mid 30’s married couple, both nurses. He got really sick and ended up in the hospital briefly. She had a mild case.
Considering some of the really strange tales, I can’t help but think this disease kicks in responses from dormant issues or takes advantage of deficiencies .