ONS coronavirus pre existing conditions stats

[KB123456]

Has anyone seen the stats from ONS this morning? Know it's a bit morbid to think about but if I'm interpreting correctly and only 2-8% (depending on age) who died of covid had asthma... If around 9% of the UK population have asthma, does that mean it doesn't increase your risk that much or am I completely misunderstanding? Not a statistician by a long way so wondering if someone can enlighten please?!

ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation...

[EmmaF91 Community Ambassador]

It depends on how many people with resp conditions were diagnosed with covid vs how many died. This chart is comparing which pre-existing conditions fare worst (ie people with ischemic heart conditions have the highest number of deaths, then dementia plays a factor, then resp conditions etc etc), but the this isn’t surprising as the virus has a worse affect the older generations, and they are more likely to have ischemic heart conditions and dementia etc. In the % chart it actually shows that women 0-69 who died more often had a resp condition rather than anything else. The only group that the non-existing were worse off than the resp conditions were men 0-69, and as I said I bet the number of cases of men with covid was much great than the number of men with covid and a ‘counted’ resp condition.

Ie If 1000 people with no pre-existing conditions get covid and 100 people die then it’s a lot of people but only 10%. But if (in the same time frame) you compare that to 20 chronic lower resp patients getting it and 19 of them dying, whilst it’s a much lower number of people, it’s a much higher % (95%) (all numbers made up for ease for understanding ofc 😅)

This is why people with pre-existing conditions are being told to shield. Cause whilst that may make it look like it doesn’t increase risk too much, you are only looking at death rates, and not comparing them to infection rates. I hope this makes sense

[KB123456 in reply to EmmaF91]

Hello, thanks for the detailed response - yes that is very helpful and makes a lot of sense (knew I was missing something but couldn't quite work out what!) So guess unless we know how many people in total (with asthma or otherwise) have been infected, a piece of the puzzle is missing.

[Troilus]

Maybe the figures are lower because people with respiratory illnesses were told to shield. My husband has had a stroke and has a pacemaker fitted, but he has not been told to shield.

[Superzob]

Previously published figures suggested that the average death rate from COVID-19 was <1%, so 2% is at least twice the average. Obviously age and pre existing conditions have a significant affect, but the small sample of actual cases seen by ONS would distort the relative rates. For instance, I am 69 with moderate/severe COPD and my wife is diabetic: from those previously published figures, I calculated our risk of death from COVID-19 to be around 7%, so we're steering clear if we can!

[Elspe]

We really don't know enough about this virus. Plus not testing enough people. They are guessing at what makes it worse, seems to me.

[nancyminder]

I saw an article in the New York Times today that said people with asthma had a lower risk for severe symptoms than people who were obese