Covid's Weighty ICU Problem: Why Do Obese Get A Pass?

“Liberals believe everyone is entitled to an opinion. Just as long as it’s the same opinion.” — Anonymous

As the Covid-19 virus has morphed, so too have methods for fighting it. From masks/ distancing to Flatten The Curve to Get the Jab health officials have employed mass coercion to get the public onside with their attempts to calm the pandemic. 

There is considerable doubt that these blunt-edge techniques prevented any significant reduction in the deaths that occurred (or that their PCR inspired “positive test” numbers were not inflated by as much as 70-80 percent). Sweden, which eschewed much of the social engineering while keeping its economy and schools open, took a beating on deaths early but is now registering virtually no deaths a day. It is an open maskless society. 

In Canada, the PM now wants vaccine passports for all internal travel— despite the fact that double-vaxxed people still spread the virus. @AB_CovidFacts As reported by AlbertaHS today. 27.5% of all NEW Covid-19 cases discovered were in the FULLY VACCINATED cohort. This is the highest percentage to date in any reporting period. ~25% of all active cases in AB today are FULLY vaccinated.” And now Trudeau is urging the vax on children as well (to flip attention from his Tofino trip)..

It’s clear that this is now a healthcare crisis, not a Covid crisis. As of this writing, there were 42,178 infected Covid patients per the wonky PCR test. Of them, 776 were in serious or critical condition.  Translation: Fewer than 800 viral cases nationwide have ruptured the Canadian Healthcare® system. While beds, resources sit unused, officials panic openly about shortfalls even as they fire unvaxxed healthcare workers.

This frustration is driving increasing panic among the 99.95 percent of the population who won’t die or have a serious illness from the vaccine. Polling shows their estimates of death are exaggerated by a factor of 10.

Thankfully, the virus will finally recede. What will be left are the coercion experiments used to convince a frightened public that flimsy masks save lives or that everyone needs to be vaccinated against a virus that was highly specific in its victims. 

What will also remain is authorities’ realization at how easily they reduced liberal democracies to pliant mobs of snitches and spies. From Australia’s draconian Zero Covid lockdown disaster to North America’s vaccination frenzy, peer pressure has won the day.

As we discussed about the NBA this week, job loss— not sickness— is the biggest threat to those who, for reasons of previous immunity, conscience or religious beliefs, have not succumbed to the needle. [Disclosure: This author has had two shots.]

Friends and neighbours we have thought otherwise sane are now seriously demanding that unvaccinated people be sent to the back of the line for healthcare till all the vaccinated people are satisfied. This triage is equal measures of fear, spite and blithering ignorance of the facts of single-payer health. 

Take this example: one of the factors established very early in the pandemic was the vulnerability of obese and morbidly obese— especially in the elderly. The AMA reports, “The vast majority—78%—of U.S. patients hospitalized with COVID-19 were overweight or had obesity. The numbers for intensive care, invasive mechanical ventilation and death were nearly the same.”

According to the CDC, 42.4 percent of U.S. adults have obesity. While some are obese for genetic or disease-related reasons, the vast proportion of the obesity is lifestyle induced. The World Obesity Federation has shown that death rates from COVID-19 have been 10 times higher in countries where more than half of the population is overweight.

Yet there is no call from the media and its acolytes to punish the obese for clogging the healthcare system. No demand they be put to the back of the line. Why? Because it doesn’t suit the narrative of right-wing extremism that non-vaxxers do. Too many allies of Woke land— in and out of politics— would be shoved down the line. 

University of Oxford researchers found, ”Excess weight is a modifiable risk factor, and investment in the treatment of overweight and obesity and long-term preventive strategies could help reduce the severity of COVID-19 disease.”

Obesity is also a factor in the debate on children taking the needle to prevent cases in schools. “At least 9 out of 10 patients that we’re seeing who are sick enough especially to be in the ICUs throughout the state, obesity plays a part in this,” said paediatric physician Eugene Daugherty, with Novant Health’s Children’s Hospital in Charlotte, N.C. The numbers are growing worse as authorities force children to home school.

(Finland has now joined Sweden, Denmark and Norway in recommending against use of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine in younger age groups, citing risks of rare cardiovascular side effects they said warranted the precautionary steps. )

Yet when was the last time you heard Justin Trudeau or president Joe Biden suggest dropping weight to lessen the burden on healthcare? The last time would be the first time, as they have been mute on lifestyle adaptions to clear the ICUs. 

It goes the same for smokers, drinkers, drug abusers and more who— under Canada’s healthcare rulers— receive the same treatment in emergency rooms as do those who live clean. According to the howler monkeys of vaccine enforcement only non-vaxxers should be culled from the herd for flooding ICUs.  (Researchers in Israel found that just over 7 percent of people with a use disorder wound up with a breakthrough infection between January and August, compared to 3.6 percent of those without.)

Despite not being harrassed, the obese are getting the message to lose weight, says Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, assistant professor of medicine and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. “I've been trying to get you to surgery for five years… And they say, ‘I'm seeing my family and friends die, and I don't want to be that person. I know I should have done it back when you recommended it in 2015 or 2013 even, but here I am. I'm ready.’”

If only today’s cancel-culture administrators and their media chums were as ready to let the facts speak honestly. 

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his new book with his son Evan is called InExact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx