Practically everyone in the state of Alabama who died of COVID-19 had at least one underlying medical condition that likely contributed to his death, updated statistics from the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) reveal.
According to ADPH, 2,932 people in the Yellowhammer State have died from COVID-19 as of October 30. Until recently, the department stated that of those, 130 were otherwise healthy individuals with no underlying conditions.
However, ADPH recently revised its process for investigating COVID-19 deaths. “We have added a number of questions to our investigation, including whether or not a person was considered obese (BMI [Body Mass Index] of 30 or higher), that have shown to be associated with poorer health outcomes among COVID-19 cases,” ADPH explained in a Facebook post. “Adding these questions has changed the numbers of those with multiple underlying conditions and no underlying conditions.”
Specifically, it reduced the number of deaths among individuals with no underlying conditions from 130 to just 14, a shrinkage of nearly 90 percent. In other words, just 0.5 percent of Alabamans who have allegedly died from COVID-19 were otherwise perfectly healthy.
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The addition of the obesity question seems to have been one of the major factors in the change. ADPH now says obese individuals accounted for 48 COVID-19 deaths. This is, perhaps, to be expected given that Alabama has an obesity rate of 36.2 percent, the sixth-highest in the nation.
Although obesity was only connected with a small number of overall COVID-19 deaths, other conditions associated with obesity were common among COVID-19 fatalities. Cardiovascular disease, for example, was the number-one comorbidity among individuals dying of COVID-19, accounting for 64 percent of such persons. Diabetics made up 41 percent of the dead. And 57 percent of the fatalities occurred among individuals with multiple underlying conditions.
Age was also highly correlated with death from COVID-19. ADPH says that the 14 otherwise healthy Alabamans who died of the virus ranged in age from 53 to 88 with a median age of 73, and the overwhelming majority of them (85.7 percent) were 65 or older. Likewise, for those with underlying conditions who died of COVID-19, 95 percent were 50 or older, and 77 percent were 65 or older.
None of this should come as a surprise. In August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were reporting that just six percent of Americans who died with — not necessarily of — COVID-19 had no underlying conditions that could have contributed to their deaths. Moreover, the CDC’s data indicated that 92 percent of those who died with the virus were at least 55 years of age, while 58 percent were 75 or older.
In fact, the only surprise should be just how low Alabama’s numbers are, given the media hype surrounding COVID-19. Out of a population of 4.9 million, just 190,496 COVID-19 cases have been reported. In other words, only 3.9 percent of Alabamans are known to have been infected by the virus, and even that is suspect given the known issues with the existing tests. (It’s also possible the number is much higher since many people who get the virus don’t even know they have it.) Moreover, of those cases, only 1.5 percent have resulted in death, and 90 percent of those deaths involved mostly elderly individuals with one or more underlying conditions.
In short, for the vast majority of Alabamans, COVID-19 is an exceedingly minimal threat. Why, then, does the state continue to suffer under an “emergency” order mandating masks, social distancing, and occupancy restrictions?
