Quote:
Originally Posted by 9M71
Thanks, while I appreciate and agree with parts of your logic, I'm not sure if h1n1 and covid-19 are exactly comparable in terms of death rate, asymptomatic spread, etc. It would be interesting to look back a few years later when we understand this better to see how we could have differently responded.
I do need to disagree with your last paragraph however. Both h1n1 and covid-19 are capable of killing young healthy people. At the beginning of the pandemic when NYC was hit hard and quick, some of my young (<40) healthy friends passed away from COVID or a condition (e.g. heart attack in an otherwise healthy person) that was triggered by COVID. IMO there is still a lot we don't understand.
|
I also send my condolences to your friends that have died from COVID. But not to be flippant. None of this attention has been showered on other illnesses that have afflicted the young as much as COVID. Those that have seen some of my posts here know I had Colon Cancer. Colon Cancer kills 60,000 people a year and has for decades. There is a significant increase in ever younger people getting it and this continues to grow each year. So much so that the screening age for the initial colonoscopy has been lowered from 50 to 45. Many of us are advocating that this should be lowered to 40; even my GI doctor agrees with this. No one knows why so many young people are getting it. Some think it could be diet. Some think it could be environmental.
The single most effective treatment for Colon/Rectal Cancer is a colonoscopy to catch it when it's a benign polyp before it grows into a tumor. Point blank, the reason the screening age hasn't been lowered is due to cost. Insurance companies don't want to pay for it if they don't have to. Many young people who are diagnosed with CRC are in more advanced stages (Stage 3 or 4) due to doctors thinking it's something else (hemorrhoids), lack of aggressive treatment because the patient is young, and the insurance factor for paying for a colonoscopy. Imagine how many of those 60,000 people per year could be alive due to having a colonoscopy early. If a fraction of the money that has been spent on COVID was spent on paying for colonoscopies, a ton of people would be alive now and into the future. Yet no one is focusing on this as it's not sexy or has any political legs. Am I frustrated and a bit bitter? Yes. Because having been affected by colon cancer both personally and seeing many friends I've met in the community die, I have a specific perspective. I was diagnosed at age 42 at Stage 3b. I've been told my tumor was slow growing and probably started as a polyp 3 years prior. Imagine how my life would have been very different if I had a colonoscopy at age 40.
BayMoWe335 Per your post about undiagnosed cancer deaths due to COVID attention, there is another aspect that won't get captured in any stats. The deaths due to treatment for existing cancer patients that were shut down due to COVID. My friend was set to go on a clinical trial at Duke until COVID hit and the clinical trial was shut down. There are tons of other people going through similar struggles.