A friend came to ask, “I saw that the new crown amputation accounts for 5%, and I don’t know what it is. Is it true?”
Severe Covid-19 can be a systemic disease, and Covid-19 is a worldwide pandemic that has killed 6.5 million people so far, so it shouldn’t be surprising to see the news that Covid-19 can affect this or that organ Bar?
COVID-19 leads to amputation, which is more common in single case reports and in people who were not vaccinated in the early stages of the epidemic. Although those photos of amputations are shocking, the actual proportion of people infected with the new crown is actually extremely low, so low that I can’t find exact data.
Some people say that 5% means that 5% of new crown patients have blood clots, not amputations.
First, this number is too high to be trusted. Think that there are 600,000 people infected with the new crown in Shanghai. Have you heard that 30,000 people have blood clots?
Secondly, sometimes the medical term for a blood clot is not a blocked blood vessel as we imagine it, but more likely a hypercoagulable state or microvascular disease.
Third, even if a patient has a blood clot, it can be treated with anticoagulants, and it is rare, very rare, to progress to amputation.
Working in a hospital, amputations are common. I still remember that I once carried a severed thigh. Because the patient was taller, I could barely carry that leg.
The most common cause of amputation is diabetes.
A retrospective analysis of amputation data from 19 general hospitals in China in 2010 found that diabetic patients accounted for nearly half (41.5%) of non-traumatic amputations.
The 2020 “Guidelines for Diagnosis and Treatment of Diabetic Foot in China” pointed out that domestic multi-center research data show that the proportion of lower extremity arterial disease in diabetic patients over 50 years old in my country is 19.5%, that is, diabetes over 50 years old. Patients, one in five suffer from lower extremity arterial disease. Severe arterial disease may lead to amputation.
According to the 2021 International Diabetes Federation (IDF) statistics, there are 2.2 million diabetic patients in Taiwan, of which more than 70,000 are diabetic foot patients. On average, 1 in 10 people suffer from serious wounds. Deterioration leads to amputation.
It is similar abroad. According to statistics, 230 diabetics need amputation every day in the United States.
Therefore, amputation caused by the new crown is becoming an extremely rare phenomenon today when vaccines are widely vaccinated and the serious illness rate is getting lower and lower. Controlling blood sugar and reducing complications of diabetes requires more attention. Amputations caused by diabetes are a threat all around us.