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Boston Medical Center ER doc: Most patients at hospital are now positive for coronavirus; minority communities seem to be getting hit harder
By adamg on Wed, 04/08/2020 - 10:58pm
Dr. Jon Santiago reports at the end of his shift in the Boston Medical Center emergency room tonight:
Tonight I took a break from the ER to round with my upstairs colleagues on our #coronavirus #COVID19 patients. Although we started using rapid tests for our homeless patients, the disproportionate impact the virus has on black/brown communities is concerning. Hang in there! pic.twitter.com/QB2Ye2dr0f
— Jon Santiago (@IamJonSantiago) April 9, 2020
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Comments
So What Are We Going To Do About This Boston?
Okay Bostonian here is your opportunity to show Boston Strong encompasses ALL
Boston Strong is helping all Bostonians
So the question is to All Bostonians,
What bright ideas do people have to offer to combat the immediately, apparent and factual racial disparity of this contagion affecting predominantly people of color at greater peace than people who are non people of color?
Boston is Stronger when we work Together!!!
They could start
by moving that test site from Chestnut Hill to Mattapan.
How about enforcing smoking
How about enforcing smoking/vaping/idling regulations? Lung damage predisposes unequal outcome.
Flour and Sugar
You are looking at a population walking into this with higher rates of obesity, diabetes, lung disease and heart disease, smoking more cigarettes and cannabis.
I would reject all the various oppression theories besides one: the weak are oppressed.
What are the answers? Look to diet and the possibility that a high-carbohydrate diet with lots of bread, pasta, fruit and sugar may have a different effect on black people vs. white or Asian people. That is, the same amount of bread will make a a sample of black eaters much fatter than a sample of white or Asian eaters.
It probably has nothing to do with choices. Your hormones control your actions and when your diet is out of order it’s going to mess with your hormones.
Good luck.
So your answer to decades
So your answer to decades long racist policies and actions is, black people should change their diet? Yikes.
Unexamined Racist Pseudoscience
Take this garbage back to Breitbart or wherever Charles Murray and company are trying to hand-wave away systemic racism.
How did this white superiority crap
get fourteen likes?
Easy
Click on the link to discover this exciting new upvote trick!!
Good question
And I thought this troll/disinformation account was blocked too.
This is classic white superiority stuff here. All BS by people looking to justify their racist views.
AG, please...don't take it down.
I can use the chuckle.
" That is, the same amount of bread will make a a sample of black eaters much fatter than a sample of white or Asian eaters."
Makes sense to me. I don't see a lot of fat white people.
"It probably has nothing to do with choices. Your hormones control your actions and when your diet is out of order it’s going to mess with your hormones."
That explains...a lot.
I WANT A DAMN PIZZA RIGHT NOW. SERVED TO ME. IN A RESTAURANT.
Jeez, Jenna, you may be on to something.
Look, I post here on occasion. The foolish liberals will whine about my obviously racist views because I cite the NIH or CDC or some other racist organization.
Look, if you're going to joust with this crowd, you have to bring something to the table. Y'know, like some sort of citation or youtube video or some seriously grounded and well-researched CNN hot take.
Bunk
Your statement is pseudoscientific bunk. Leaving aside your farcical "hormones" argument, while underlying health issues have something to do with outcomes, they have nothing whatsoever to do with infection and transmission. This is a highly contagious, highly infectious virus. If it is circulating more widely in certain communities, the reasons why should be identified as a public health matter.
Well, ok.
"... underlying health issues have something to do with outcomes, they have nothing whatsoever to do with infection and transmission."
So, a healthy and robust immune system has nothing to do with infection or transmission rates.
OK. got it.
I'm going to have some cake with Kahlua on it now.
Not the way you're thinking
Not the way you're thinking.
A "healthy and robust immune system" has something to do with the likelihood and speed of recovery, and all other things being equal, that means that you are infectious for a shorter period of time. It has nothing to do with transmission or infection. If you have the virus, you can transmit it; if you don't have the virus, you can become infected, and the health or robustness of your immune system has nothing to say about that.
Apparently you think this means something.
Diet Disinformation above.
JennyR, Go away, gluten-free Troll.
Focus on improving quality of
Focus on improving quality of life in black and brown communities:
- Reduce air and noise pollution from highways (with policies to reduce the number of cars and have more of the remaining cars be less polluting)
- Improve public parks and playgrounds
- Provide safer streets for walking and bicycling
- Reduce food desserts (provide healthier, more affordable fresh food options)
- Provide affordable health insurance and health care options for all
- Provide more public health education
Diesel-fueled trucks are
Diesel-fueled trucks are toxic. Don't just reduce the number of cars.
But not fruit.
That causes black people to get fat.
Listen: so and so needs to go
Listen: so and so needs to go for his daily run around crowded Jamaica Pond, whosiewhatsits is pissed he can't wait in line for hours for his rec weed, JennyWhatever think all minorities should be following the keto diet, and Joe The Plumber thinks this is all a democratic hoax anyway!
There are also reports that
There are also reports that men are twice as more likely than women to die from the virus.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/health/coronavir...
Ya
I saw something like that a while back in reference to the ROK. The explanation at the time was along the lines of 'it's cultural, Korean men smoke at a much higher rate than women.'
Then it happened in Italy, same reasoning.
I suppose the truth of the matter is how well people take care of themselves. It seems that any poor lifestyle choice or age-related problem will skew the odds against you. We may have to wait until it's over to research the answers. For now, it's a steaming pile of BS. The governor of Connecticut the other day said an infant died, then walked it back a bit at a presser. By 'walked it back' I mean that the poor baby was 'accidentally smothered by a caregiver'
That is quite a walkback.
One thing I read somewhere is that a C19 positive test generally means they'll use that as a COD. That seems to be jacking up the death rate somewhat. But wait...there's more...
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/coronavirus/Alert-2-New-ICD-code-intr...
“Should ‘COVID-19’ be reported on the death certificate only with a confirmed test?”
“COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death.” [Boldfacing in original]
Poor lifestyle choice?
I presume you're referring to poor lifestyle choices such as, for example, choosing to be born poor and black in America, and suffering the weathering effects of a lifetime of economic insecurity and of grinding, day-in and day-out fear for the safety of oneself and one's family.
Yup. And then some.
Lotsa words in that post. You take four of them out of context and build a whole racist construct out of them. Impressive. I'm referring to poor lifestyle choices of, say ROK men smoking or, well, eating apples while black (read that somewhere recently).
With context? It means 'age related problems' or maybe asking the governor of Connecticut if the dead infant, the one that died of C19 until it didn't, was black or white.
Question the figures if it seems to have an agenda behind it. Even in difficult times like these, there are those that 'won't let a crisis go to waste'.
You need to stop trying to hard
All you're doing here is your usual useless agenda-driven fact-free trolling. Go sew a mask or something.
BMC is getting hammered
BMC is getting hammered pretty hard and they have just revised their mask policy to issue a single N95 to individuals treating C-19 positive patients for the entire shift which is to be placed in a tupperware container and then returned for sterilization. I'm assuming you can get it replaced if it gets damaged or soiled during the shift but they didn't explicitly state as much.
There are higher rates in poorer neighborhoods in Boston
My guess is that, among other things, people in those neighborhoods are more likely to be working in jobs like food and goods deliveries, cashiers, transit drivers, warehouses, etc. that put them at higher risk due to more contact w/people, inadequate protective gear, lack of sick days encouraging them and co-workers to come to work even if they're sick, etc. Those factors would increase the rates of illness.
Lack of adequate healthcare that goes with many of these jobs would also increase the likelihood of having inadequately treated chronic conditions that increase the severity of COVID-19 and therefore the probability of needing hospitalization.
Heard on the radio this AM
(sorry wasn't in the room long enough to find out who was speaking. One of the public radio stations around 10:30)
"What's bothering me here is not the news that this disease is disproportionately affecting people of color; what's bothering me is hearing public officials expressing surprise at this finding."
Gee, who ever could possibly have thought that living with higher levels of economic insecurity and higher levels of fear for personal safety, with worse access to good jobs and quality medical care, in more crowded neighborhoods with poorer quality housing stock, with greater dependency on crowded public transportation, with jobs that require more public contact and that don't allow working from home, could possibly lead to worse medical outcomes?
But that takes actual thinking.
It's easier to say that it depends on race and diet.
Hey, still trying to convince
Hey, still trying to convince certain members of my family that this isn't a democratic hoax and to STOP exposing our elderly parent with COPD to high risk get-togethers because you think this is a MSM scam to take down 45: go fuck yourselves. Sorry for the rude language, Adam.
Two: Proximity & Bad Health
To data there is no indication that the virus is more or less catchable depending on anything intrinsic about a person:
Ref public people with the COVID-19 disease [a very partial list]:
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau [wife of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau], Boris Johnson [UK PM], Prince Charles [UK], Tom Hanks, Senator Rand Paul,
Iraj Harirchi [Iranian Deputy Health Minister], Olga Kurylenko [French actress, starred in Bond movie Quantum of Solace],
Michigan State Rep, Capt. Brett E. Crozier, USN [ex-Captain of the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt], Sailor on USNS Comfort, Rita Wilson, Prince Albert II of Monaco,
Matthew Hancock [Britain Health Secretary], Alister Jack [Scottish Secretary and member of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's cabinet],
James Dolan [the executive chairman of the Madison Square Garden Company], Chris Cuomo [CNN anchor and a brother of the current New York state governor], Brooke Baldwin [Another CNN who works with Cuomo],
Rudy Gobert [Utah Jazz player touched all the microphones], Donovan Mitchell [Utah Jazz teammate of Gobert’s], Kevin Durant [1 of 4 Brooklyn Nets players], Marcus Smart [Boston Celtics], Jason Collins [former NBA star],
Dmitry Strakhov [cyclist at the UAE Tour],
Turkish Boxing Federation [Serhat Guler national team member and trainer Seyfullah Dumlupinar], Sampdoria Italian football club [Five footballers along with the team's doctor], Dusan Vlahovic [Serbian striker for Fiorentina], Marouane Fellaini [former Manchester United footballer, currently plays for Chinese Super League], Callum Hudson-Odoi [player Chelsea Football Club], Colton Underwood [former lead of “The Bachelor”], Kristofer Hivju [played Tormund Giantsbane on HBO's “Game of Thrones”],
Harvey Weinstein [film producer -- convicted of rape and other sex crimes], Jackson Browne [singer-songwriter], Slim Thug [Houston rapper],
Daniel Dae Kim [South Korean-American actor from Hawaii Five-0], Placido Domingo [Spanish opera singer 73 years old -- one of the 3 Tenors], Luis Sepulveda [best-selling Chilean writer, lives in northern Spain, diagnosed after returning from a literary festival in Portugal], Michel Barnier [European Union's chief Brexit negotiator], Bento Albuquerque [Brazilian Mines and Energy Minister], Augusto Heleno [Brazil's national security adviser, 72 years old Army General ret.], Jeremy Issacharoff [Israel's ambassador to Germany], Friedrich Merz [64-year-old politician, campaigning to lead Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU)], Kozo Tashima [head of Japan's football association & deputy head of Japan's Olympic Committee], Nadine Dorries [Minister in UK's Health Department, the first British politician to test positive on March 10], Peter Dutton [Australian Home Affairs Minister], Massoumeh Ebtekar [Iranian Vice President], Begona Gomez [Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's wife], Quim Torra [The local leader Spain’s Catalonia region], Irene Montero [Spanish Minister & partner to Deputy Prime Minister Pablo Iglesias], Franck Riester [French Minister of Culture], Francis Suarez [Mayor of City of Miami], Fabio Wajngarten [Press Secretary for Brazilian President Bolsonaro], Michal Wos [Polish Environment Minister], Oumarou Idani [Burkina Faso Minister of Mines], Stanislas Ouaro [Burkina Faso Minister of Education]
and of course the President of Harvard and his wife
Famous people who died from COVID-19 and possibly other co-morbidities:
Not famous except as a recent person who died: Cashier at Market Basket
What do all these people have in common -- Not Age, Ethnicity, Sex, Race, Income, Location, Occupation, Travel or lack there of -- only two things bind all the COVID-19 patients:
So -- why do the homeless, and poor as well as "people of color" do less well on an average after they catch COVID-19. It mostly comes down to the so-called co-morbidity factors:
And finally while it doesn't make you more or less sick -- Close Proximity to people who might be transmitting the SARS-COV-2 virus by talking, breathing, coughing, spitting, etc.
For example the case of:
While some might catch the COVID-19 through contact with a door knob or a seat on a Subway Car and then wiping their face -- this is probably not the primary means of transmission.
Ultimately --- the Frequency and Exposure at close range which you have to infected people -- That's the primary aspect which makes you more likely to catch COVID-19