Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: https://nationalpost.com/health/beyond-the-numbers-who-is-dying-of-covid-in-canada-and-how
...What lives are being lost to COVID?
The older, those with underlying diseases, those with weak immune systems. Of the more than 9,500 people in Canada who succumbed to COVID in the first wave, between March and July, 90 per cent had at least one other cause, condition or complication reported on the death certificate, according to Statistics Canada.
Dementia or Alzheimer’s, the most common conditions associated with COVID-involved deaths, were listed on the death certificate of 42 per cent of women, and 33 per cent of men. More than half of seniors aged 80 and older living in long term care have dementia.
Cancer, nervous system disorders like Parkinson’s or ALS, respiratory disease, diabetes, kidney failure, heart disease, high blood pressure and pneumonia — all increase the risk of a lethal case of COVID. All are more common among people aged 65 and older, who accounted for 94 per cent of all COVID-involved deaths in the first wave. But they also affect millions of Canadians. Some three million are living with diabetes, more than seven million with hypertension.
The World Health Organization defines a death due to COVID as a death resulting from a “clinically compatible illness, in a probable or confirmed COVID-19 case,” StatsCan says. “There should be no period of complete recovery from COVID-19 between illness and death.”
Death from COVID is not unlike dying from an infectious respiratory disease. Respiratory failure is the “primary driver of passing” about a third of the time, says Dr. Anand Kumar, an intensive care doctor with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. “If these are young people or middle-aged people we can offer some extraordinary support measures, like putting you on cardiopulmonary bypass basically.” A machine pumps and oxygenates the blood. You can do that for a period of time, maybe weeks, and hope that the lungs are healing. About two-thirds develop multiple organ failure, where their heart starts to fail, the kidneys fail, the liver starts to give out. This tends to occur in people on dialysis or with diabetes-related organ injury. “The one unusual way that people with COVID-19 die is with bleeding and clotting problems,” Kumar said...
...What lives are being lost to COVID?
The older, those with underlying diseases, those with weak immune systems. Of the more than 9,500 people in Canada who succumbed to COVID in the first wave, between March and July, 90 per cent had at least one other cause, condition or complication reported on the death certificate, according to Statistics Canada.
Dementia or Alzheimer’s, the most common conditions associated with COVID-involved deaths, were listed on the death certificate of 42 per cent of women, and 33 per cent of men. More than half of seniors aged 80 and older living in long term care have dementia.
Cancer, nervous system disorders like Parkinson’s or ALS, respiratory disease, diabetes, kidney failure, heart disease, high blood pressure and pneumonia — all increase the risk of a lethal case of COVID. All are more common among people aged 65 and older, who accounted for 94 per cent of all COVID-involved deaths in the first wave. But they also affect millions of Canadians. Some three million are living with diabetes, more than seven million with hypertension.
The World Health Organization defines a death due to COVID as a death resulting from a “clinically compatible illness, in a probable or confirmed COVID-19 case,” StatsCan says. “There should be no period of complete recovery from COVID-19 between illness and death.”
Death from COVID is not unlike dying from an infectious respiratory disease. Respiratory failure is the “primary driver of passing” about a third of the time, says Dr. Anand Kumar, an intensive care doctor with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. “If these are young people or middle-aged people we can offer some extraordinary support measures, like putting you on cardiopulmonary bypass basically.” A machine pumps and oxygenates the blood. You can do that for a period of time, maybe weeks, and hope that the lungs are healing. About two-thirds develop multiple organ failure, where their heart starts to fail, the kidneys fail, the liver starts to give out. This tends to occur in people on dialysis or with diabetes-related organ injury. “The one unusual way that people with COVID-19 die is with bleeding and clotting problems,” Kumar said...