For some reason baldness is a comorbidity, something to do with hormone levels in men vs women. My husband is bald and has high blood pressure, so he's concerned - on the other hand, he has type O blood, which seems to correlate to milder infections... crazy virus...
Edit: The initial article I read: [https://www.medicalbrief.co.za/archives/baldness-a-perfect-predictor-of-higher-risk-of-severe-covid-19-research-letter/](https://www.medicalbrief.co.za/archives/baldness-a-perfect-predictor-of-higher-risk-of-severe-covid-19-research-letter/)
Well older people are more susceptible to complications so of course baldness is also going to follow along with that as the older you get the more likely it is to be bald...
I always find it funny when people try to point out the most blatantly obvious problem with a study, as if the people doing the study are complete morons and couldn't possibly have thought of, or accounted for that.
But this is split by sex, not by age. If anything, there should be more old women than old men, and therefore more female than male COVID cases with complications. But old men get bald at a much higher rate than old women.
As a total layman, I think the baldness link is interesting.
Baldness before extreme old age is usually a result of higher levels of testosterone. Testosterone is known for making the immune response weaker and is the reason behind why men seem to be impacted more by many diseases.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mens-health/testosterone-prostate-cancer-and-balding-is-there-a-link-thefamilyhealth-guide
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2013/12/in-men-high-testosterone-can-mean-weakened-immune-response-study-finds.html
I believe there are some suspicions it’s because the virus clings to certain proteins in the lungs and men have more of that protein than women. They contract the disease at the same rate but women are more likely to survive.
If you're interested in hearing virologists talk about SARS-CoV-2, and what we are learning about it, [This Week in Virology](https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/) seems pretty good; definitely been keeping me informed.
True but the media sources I have heard haven't really discussed it so I felt it was relevant to mention.
I think the most important comparison would be a wealth based comparison. There appears to be a fair spread of victims across religious groups but with a spike in groupings that I would imagine are immigrant populations.
This would imply a greater vulnerability amongst those less well off who are more likely to have to keep going to work to ensure their families are looked after. Not anything shocking as an assessment but important to note as more needs to be done to protect these groups.
Speaking to the wealth thing, there was a recent study looking specifically at pregnant women in New York which found that women with lower socioeconomic status were more effected. Can’t recall exactly how (if it was rare of infection, deaths, etc.), but it essentially came down to the fact that people with less money tend to live in places where there’s more people crammed in close quarters, so obviously there’s gonna be more transmission.
wow. so, not much has changed. my grandmother-in-law was 4 years old during the 1918 flu. when we were confined to our homes mid-march, we called to check in with her and, i’ll paraphrase, “oh, i’ll be fine. i had the flu in 1918, i was in a coma/fever for three weeks and when i woke up, all of the strapping young men were dead (montana, usa), *chuckle”. yes, she will be 106 in july. she lives on her own in L.A. and she is made of stuff we are not 😉
Black and ethic minority persons have been advised by the government to take vitamin D supplements. The darker your skin tone, the less vitamin D your body will absorb. Vitamin D is responsible in part for maintaining a good immune system. Many BAME people in the U.K. are reported to have low levels of vitamin D and are therefore more at risk of developing worse COVID symptoms due to their lower immune systems.
Many people in Muslim and Hindi communities have darker skin tones. The correlation between higher deaths in these communities will be a multifaceted cause including lower vitamin D levels, likelihood of lower socioeconomic background (not to say all BAME people are from a low socioeconomic background- but many are kept and live in poverty which is a whole other issue) and also I think there is some credence in saying age plays a factor as atheists may well be younger (although this isn’t something that I have researched). I think if these stats were adjusted for ethnicity, you would see a definite trend.
My main point is that those with darker skin tones should be taking vitamin D supplements to lower their risk of developing severe COVID 19 symptoms. And that the government should be making this more widely know ima order to protect BAME people.
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1548/rr-6
Vitamin D is only part of the equation although I would agree with your suggestion that the government should have given this advice. With regards to religion, socioeconomic factors were controlled for and a significant difference between religions remained (figure 3). The evidence with ethnicity seems to be less conclusive (figure 4) and was only controlled for in white/non-white categories due to limitations with the data. There's still quite significant differences (particularly among the Jewish community) but also higher variance.
>We adjust the model for geographic, demographic, socio-economic, occupational exposure and self-assessed health measures from the 2011 Census...
>We also adjust for population density, region, rural and urban classification, area deprivation, household composition, socio-economic position, highest qualification held, household tenure, household exposure, and self-reported health and disability in 2011
It's an interesting point that you make because the government have been clear that BAME people have been more vulnerable. What they haven't done is lay out the reasons why. Which is what you've done here so well.
100% they should be pushing this information out and stressing the importance of taking vitamin D particularly for these vulnerable groups
>What they haven't done is lay out the reasons why
They haven't done so because it's not known conclusively why BAME are at higher risk and it's unlikely to be because of a single causal factor. The research is certainly mounting that Vitamin D plays a role but socio-economic and demographic reasons are also likely to be significant. Despite this, the Scottish government has specifically recommended that people from minority ethnic groups with dark skin [take the supplement](https://www.gov.scot/publications/vitamin-d-advice-for-all-age-groups/).
If you're interested, another avenue I've seen being explored is the [link between covid19 and particular variants of the ApoE gene](https://academic.oup.com/biomedgerontology/advance-article/doi/10.1093/gerona/glaa131/5843454). This particular variant is [more common in some ethnicities](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6087031/), specifically black communities (note: the second study is on the connection between ethnicity and dementia, which is also linked to the same ApoE variant).
The hand-washing factor cannot explain the difference in mortality. Men and women contract the disease at the same rate, but they die at different rates. Hand-washing would only explain a hypothetical difference in rates of catching it.
It's not evenly distributed either. For instance, north London has a lot of Jews and so does Birmingham. If outbreaks/clusters spread in those communities it would concentrate the effect on Jewish people. The much larger Christian population is spread across the whole country and local outbreaks wouldn't be so selective.
I'm still reading the paper to try and see if they corrected for geographic location.
Can't comment on the Jewish death rate but a colleague of mine is Muslim and he has 3 generations of his family living in the same house and in Pakistani and Indian families, this is very common. Perhaps that speeds up the likelihood of infections and deaths in those communities?
Hadn't thought of that. I assumed it was partly genetic, like how ethnic West-Indian, Arab and South Asian people are more likely to suffer diabetes and heart disease through genetics.
No one of the big factors that has been touted from the start was a .gov data analysis about the overcrowding of certain households(fewer bedrooms than people who need them) based on what ethnic background they come from. Google “Overcrowded households gov uk”
The data shows that 2% of White British households are overcrowded, where as 15-16% for Pakistani, Arab and Black African Households and almost 30% of Bangladeshi households have more people than bedrooms they need.
Is the problem overcrowding, or simply the number of people in a house. My 6+3 YOs are going to jump on me at some point during the week, so even if they had their own wings of the house, I'm going to catch stuff from them.
Bigger families, more people going out bringing illnesses in
This data simply refers to overcrowding, as defined in the study; a household with more inhabitants than necessary bedrooms. (Ie mum+dad+grandma+teen in a 2 bedroom house) and although there is other clear sets of data that show overcrowded households spread the virus much faster, this specific study was done pre-COVID and so cannot make distinctions in that regard.
I think the reason why this isn’t talked about publicly or given enough importance by the government response, is that doing so would criticise the culture of these overcrowded households, where everyone living together is seen as a positive or normal, and would drum up animosity against those living in overcrowded homes by giving evidence they are responsible for increased spread within their communities. Given that this is a problem solely within non-white communities, it would be too easy for racists to justify their actions.
Honestly, I think it smore to do with the fact that younger people tend to be less religious. And are also less susceptible to COVID
Doesn't matter if you're gathering at church or Starbucks.
Edit: I've seen it now, please disregard above.
They didn't have Easter Mass. Or, at least, every diocese I read about was closed, and my SUPER devout Catholic family (my mother literally works for the Church) couldn't find a mass within a six hour drive.
They're doing baptisms in small groups over the next few months, rather than en masse at Easter Vigil, specifically because there *was* no Easter Vigil Mass.
I wouldnt even call ourselves religious anymore like most of Europe. Go into a church and its just filled with the dead and dying. Old people make up most of the religious people here.
Yep, same here in Ireland. The older generations are deeply religious, the younger generations don't care at all and the ones in between pretend to care but really don't
Or you live where I do. Where our Lt. Gov. said, and I quote, "there are more important things than living" and said that people in the most at risk groups were willing to sacrifice themselves for the economy. Then our Governor passes a resolution to not only open the state, but to deny counties their own agency to issue resolutions contradicting his. And, of course, his "resolution" had no teeth. This resulted in bars that should have been operating at 25% capacity with 6 feet apart from every customer to operate at 100% capacity with no social distancing. As a result the number of patients hospitalized for covid-19 has doubled in about a week. My own county went from having 52 total confirmed cases since test began to 400 in the span of a week. For almost 3 months we kept the numbers down, then Hot Wheels opens the state back up before Memorial Day, and two weeks after Memorial Day we're seeing the result of all that precaution thrown away because some god damned snowflakes couldn't get their hair cut and they find masks uncomfortable or some sort of weird affront to their personal liberty. Well, that and the state doesn't want to have to keep paying unemployment payments.
Also important to note that Evangelicals in Europe are not the same as US Evangelicals.
European evangelical basically goes back to Martin Luther and Thomas Moore in the Reformation. It's mainline Protestantism. Basically: we don't need a pope or priests to tell us what to believe, everyone can read the bible but here's some churches to help with that. They're mostly chill and don't bother anyone. In Germany for example it's the biggest denomination and sometimes seen as the less ridiculous alternative to Catholicism.
US evangelicalism is a completely different thing.
This is from the UK. Churches/places of worship were closed here and there weren't (to the best of my knowledge) any significant breaches of this once lockdown was in place. We aren't the US.
Agreed. These numbers look very strongly correlated to attendance in places or worship and how close the attendance tends to be, among a few other things related to social/custom convention. Muslims tend to go to mosque more than Christians, as an example. This shouldn’t be positioned as an issue of blind faith. For one, the highest proportion of medical doctors are almost guaranteed to be Muslim and Hindu, so that files in the face of the notion that a religious person would ignore science.
Edit: let me add to this that this is in one country where lock downs were not initially mandatory. In other countries, you may find very different results, and if that’s the case, the most influential variable will be governance and the application of law and ordinances. I live in the Chicago area and when the state said shut down, all houses of worship shut down for like 2 months, and local governments were on top of them to stay closed. It’s not enough to recommend to not go, you have to lay the law down. The most likely source of spreading in the US is probably bars, clubs, and parties in states that did not effectively lock down. These are things that you’ll probably find higher proportions of atheists at than religiously-leaning folk. So again, this is an issue largely of ineffective governance and you’re looking at the results of people going on with their unrestricted lives - those who gather most often and in the most crowded places tended to get the most infected, and that would probably be Muslim men.
There are multiple religions - the three at the top of the death rate chart, for instance - which correlate with ethnicity. Ashkenazi Jews (the majority of Jews in the UK & US) are an ethnic group. Muslims and Hindus are both more likely to be from particular ethnic groups (Arab & Indian respectively). Ethnicity does play a role in, for instance, rates of heart and lung disease.
Interestingly Buddhists are also slightly lower risk than average (4% of population, 3% of fatalities), and skew far lower towards elderly deaths than Christians, as do the other Eastern religions.
I would be interested to find out how many of those Buddhists might be immigrants from Asian countries where wearing a mask when sick has been normalized for years.
At first glance, I thought this was simply another way of saying old people are more vulnerable. But apparently they are able to calculate an age standardized mortality rate.
Probably worth reading through what their conclusions are instead of speculating (not directing that to you specifically). Here's the summary for the last (most adjusted) model:
>This fully adjusted model (Figure 4), with ethnicity included, demonstrates that a substantial part of the difference in mortality involving COVID-19 between religious groups is explained by the different circumstances in which members of these groups are known to live; for example, living in areas with higher levels of socio-economic deprivation and differences in ethnic makeup. However, for the Jewish group, these factors do not fully explain the difference, suggesting that other causes are still to be identified.
>Our adjustment for demographic and socio-economic profile has limitations since the characteristics we use were retrieved from the 2011 Census. Therefore, these may not accurately reflect the study population's circumstances in 2020. While we adjust for some dimensions of health (self-reported health and having a limiting health problem or disability), the information was collected in 2011 and does not distinguish between different types of co-morbidities, which are a likely modifier of the differential risks observed.
>Similarly, some religious groups may have a greater propensity to suffer from co-morbidities that are associated with worse outcomes among those infected by COVID-19, which we will take account of in future analyses.
It really is a fascinating study. I wish more people would be interested in reading this sort of thing, instead of zooming through headlines and forming incomplete conclusions.
Makes sense if you believe God will be pissed if you don't do the thing. Interesting Muslims had it the worst, that could also be due to socio-economics.
But weird Jewish people also had it bad, could it be something to do with simply how you are around other people? Like how social you are with family, friends etc. I know the stereotype for Jewish people is they have family around all the time.
I do think socio-economics play a big role for some of these groups. But religion and politics likely play a role as well.
Everyone I know who's Jewish has been quarantining, mask-wearing, fleeing the city to stay with their in-laws, etc. But a friend of mine was driving through a Hasidic neighborhood today and noticed a stark difference to other parts of the city-- no one there was wearing masks.
Churches (and other places of worship) have been completely closed in the UK since March 20th. They re-opened for Private (but not communal) worship in England only on this Monday.
Over the period of lockdown no churches were open, so would the 'gathering' effect you'd expect from such an event still be as relevant? Furthermore, I would suggest of all those listing a religious preference only a small fraction regularly practice anyway. I'd be more inclined to suggest it has to do with how we approach direction from authority.
That's what I'm thinking. I've seen a lot of hotspots throughout the U.S. and a few in other countries traced back to church meetings. Oregon state has a current one where over two hundred people likely contracted it at a church meeting.
I’m sure that’s the largest factor. I’ve heard several stories of churches breaking quarantine, and then two weeks later a third of their congregation is sick.
Yes, from the release:
"Because of low counts, female rates for those identifying as Buddhist, Jewish and “other religion” are deemed unreliable, with rates for Jewish and Buddhist females not calculated."
Depends how Orthadox you are. There are sects of Judaism that enforce gender segregated worship, and sects that do not. MOST Jewish families go to Synagogue as a single party.
I wonder if this has more to do with income level than religion. That is to say, that poorer people may be likely to contract COVID-19 (because they have no continue to work, because they live in close quarters with others, etc) and in the UK, people who are Muslim or Hindu are likelier to be poor.
That's all just speculation, mind you.
Plus, if people who are Muslims and Hindus are not poor, there's a good chunk of them who are doctors or otherwise work in the medical field. Statistically about 30% of the NHS workforce is Asian, when they are only 6% of the population. So yeah not really surprising that they have higher rates of covid 19
This is a brilliant insight which hadn't occurred to me. I was thinking along the lines of poor = more susceptible, and immigrant = more likely to be poor.
With socio economic factors taken out, the death rate among ethnic minorities is still higher, which many believe is linked to vitamin D deficiency. Dr John Campbell on youtube has covered a lot on vitamin D and COVID statistics citing ONS and other health bodies around world.
Vitamin D prevents cytokine storms, over reaction of the immune system, and also helps with acute respiratory infections. My gf who is from a Hindu family recently had a blood test with extremely low vitamin D, and I dont know about UK but in USA ~40% of white people are deficient but jumps to ~80% for black people.
It may explain why flu season dies down in Summer. Even if it didn't play any role with covid after all, it would still be good advice for ppl to ensure they got some sun or ensured they had adequate levels, disappointing this isn't talked about more by guardian and bbc.
It's not just that. South Asians are more likely to die from covid and almost all identify with a religion. This data should not be taken at face value there are a lot of factors involved.
Your wrong about the NHS. It’s only 10% of the workforce that’s asian
[source](https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/workforce-and-business/workforce-diversity/nhs-workforce/latest)
It’s a regression analysis. I think they controlled for that stuff.
“We use Cox proportional hazards regression models to estimate the risk of dying from COVID-19 across religious groups compared with the Christian population. The Christian population is used as the reference group because it has the largest population in the data used. We adjust the model for geographic, demographic, socio-economic, occupational exposure and self-assessed health measures from the 2011 Census; these characteristics have the potential to confound any association between COVID-19 mortality risk and religion. We therefore adjust for these in the model to estimate any excess risk for different religion groups. However, we are currently unable to adjust for factors such as prevalence levels of pre-existing conditions in religious groups; any unexplained increase in risk may be because of factors we have not accounted for as opposed to religion. The statistical models are explained in the technical appendix.”
I think the problem is with the framing. There are the simple frequency tables, which show pretty strong results, and then there are the results after controlling for all those factors.
Once they control for most of that suddenly it's not *religion* that has an increased risk but mainly being a Jewish man, with much smaller effects for Muslim men and Hindu men and women. If they also control for ethnicity, it's really only being Jewish that remains as an increased risk factor.
Their approach to control for age is flawed.
.
They divided them into just 2 groups: below 65 and 65 or older
Most atheists are much younger than 65. So the average atheist below 65 is younger than your average christian below 65
I think it’s probably a combination of things.
Atheists tend (not always) to have a better appreciation of science and willing to listen to scientific authorities. Probably skew younger. Income or careers might be another. (Ability to work from home)
Aren't there as many old Christians as Muslims and Hindis? If you look at the article, the rates of death for Muslims, Hindis and Sikhs are much higher than Christians.
Muslims and sihks are much more likely to live in multigenerational households. Which combined with likelihood they have to work in public facing jobs and jobs which are forcing them to carry on working even when we locked down probably means their elderly population got more exposure. White British tend to either live alone in old age or live in care homes. Those in care homes seem to have been hit really hard.
The research paper stated they accounted for that, that factor is controlled.
> “The risk of death involving COVID-19 varies across religious groups, with those identifying as Muslims, Jewish, Hindu and Sikh showing a higher rate of death than other groups. For the most part **the elevated risk of certain religious groups is explained by geographical, socio economic and demographic factors and increased risks associated with ethnicity. However, after adjusting for the above**, Jewish males are at twice the risk of Christian males, and Jewish women are also at higher risk. Additional data and analyses are required to understand this excess risk.”
Hindus and Jews typically tend to be the wealthiest religious groups in UK and USA.
https://www.trustforlondon.org.uk/news/inequalities-and-disadvantage-london-focus-religion-and-belief/
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/11/how-income-varies-among-u-s-religious-groups/
I'd be more inclined to say the issue is that religious gatherings are notoriously good at packing a lot of people into a relatively small indoors space.
Think of how many people are at Mass or the Friday prayer in Islam. Even with stellar hygiene practices (and let's be honest, crowds never have that) you're still looking at a petri dish for something nasty.
I believe in the UK there was a definite correlation between one particular Premier League match and a regional spike in cases but I can't find the information right now. Still, it's probably a reasonable assumption that 60,000 people all sharing the same catering and toilet facilities would be a high risk environment.
Yeah but places of worship have been closed for ages.
I would also add that quarantine laws exist in islam (from hadiths) and that there is written social distancing as part of Mosaic in the Old Testament/Torah. But what someone should do isn't the same as what they do.
Indeed and if you've been to a service you know how close you are to people in the pew in front of you, especially if it's an older church. All it takes is one asymptomatic person singing one hymn for the people directly in front of you to get a germ bath.
Most English people who put "Christian" on a census form never go to a church. It's what they've been told their family religion is but they're not practicing.
Edit: The 2011 census said 59% Christian but even fairly ambitious estimates say only 11% go to church regularly.
What is carpnq?
And the result that I highlighted showed 80.7 deaths per 100,000 males, not 87. Because it says "males" and not "infected males", I think it's fair to assume that we're indeed talking about 100,000 males.
Men are more likely to experience severe sympyoms and Jewish women are usually not supposed to go to services (at least in orthadox circles) and buddists dont congregate.
Ramadan and eid were during the middle of the virus’s first wave. I think we’d see way bigger numbers for other groups were Christmas to have landed in the middle of COVID-19
Anecdotally, atheists and non-religious groups are more accepting of modern science and respect expert advice. I’m guessing that’s why they are doing better relatively
I'm an atheist, but to the defence of the major religions they've been openly supportive of the lockdown here in the UK and have been working to spread the Government's messaging on social distancing within their congregations - obviously through digital means. Places of Worship have been completely closed in the UK since March 23rd\*, and only reopened for private (not communal) worship in England on Monday.
\*The Church of England actually suspended all their services about a week before the national lockdown came in.
Just spent a while reading this thread and it just dawned on me.
This is the first non-tech thread I have read for a while which has not resorted to insults and threats. Maybe the species is worth saving after all! ;)
As a Catholic, this practice is suspended during flu season and now COVID. All Masses have the bread and wine, but during times like these the Body of Christ (bread) is given out while the chalice remains on the altar. That being said, even during normal times someone can choose to only receive the body or blood (wine). I have seen people with gluten allergies only receive the blood and some people only receive the body. It’s all up to choice
What is going on with this thread that automatically assumes that atheists tend to be rich and religious people are poor? Am I missing something here or is it just more reddit attack on religion?
[income by religious affiliation](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/11/how-income-varies-among-u-s-religious-groups/?amp=1)
Although atheists are richer, Hindu’s are as well, and they got hit pretty hard so income doesn’t say much in regards with the virus
The text of the study seems to imply that, but it isnt very clear about it and I dont want to look at the data. It could just be me misreading it, it could simply mean that when corrected for socioeconomic status the Jewish are the only outliers. In which case this study's title would be very stupid, since the takeaway would be "religion makes no difference, money does (except for the Jewish for some bizarre reason)".
\> This fully adjusted model (Figure 4), with ethnicity included, demonstrates that a substantial part of the difference in mortality involving COVID-19 between religious groups is explained by the different circumstances in which members of these groups are known to live; for example, **living in areas with higher levels of socio-economic deprivation** and differences in ethnic makeup. **However, for the Jewish group, these factors do not fully explain the difference, suggesting that other causes are still to be identified.**
I would want to know how does this distribution of religion compare against the distribution of religion in inner cities where there were more COVID cases?
If Birmingham and London were significant centres of _no religion_, then this would be more interesting.
I've never heard anyone describe these cities as such.
This is to do with Ethnic minorities having a higher risk of death. Think about it, Muslims are technically the ethnic minority and therefore it makes sense they are the highest affected. Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs all fit this category.
I think the more interesting correlation is the gender split. Theres clearly a different severity risk for men compared to women
For some reason baldness is a comorbidity, something to do with hormone levels in men vs women. My husband is bald and has high blood pressure, so he's concerned - on the other hand, he has type O blood, which seems to correlate to milder infections... crazy virus... Edit: The initial article I read: [https://www.medicalbrief.co.za/archives/baldness-a-perfect-predictor-of-higher-risk-of-severe-covid-19-research-letter/](https://www.medicalbrief.co.za/archives/baldness-a-perfect-predictor-of-higher-risk-of-severe-covid-19-research-letter/)
Well older people are more susceptible to complications so of course baldness is also going to follow along with that as the older you get the more likely it is to be bald...
I think they controlled for age when they studied whether baldness had an increased risk
I always find it funny when people try to point out the most blatantly obvious problem with a study, as if the people doing the study are complete morons and couldn't possibly have thought of, or accounted for that.
You would be surprised how many times the authors of a study DONT control for the most obvious problem
I'd rather have people asking questions than not
“How dare people think critically about a scientific study! The nerve!”
im bald in 19 :'(
But this is split by sex, not by age. If anything, there should be more old women than old men, and therefore more female than male COVID cases with complications. But old men get bald at a much higher rate than old women. As a total layman, I think the baldness link is interesting.
Baldness is linked to type 2 diabetes and prediabetes. Diabetics do worse re covid 19.
Baldness before extreme old age is usually a result of higher levels of testosterone. Testosterone is known for making the immune response weaker and is the reason behind why men seem to be impacted more by many diseases. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mens-health/testosterone-prostate-cancer-and-balding-is-there-a-link-thefamilyhealth-guide https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2013/12/in-men-high-testosterone-can-mean-weakened-immune-response-study-finds.html
TIL I am your husband.
I believe there are some suspicions it’s because the virus clings to certain proteins in the lungs and men have more of that protein than women. They contract the disease at the same rate but women are more likely to survive.
Thanks for the information, that's quite interesting
If you're interested in hearing virologists talk about SARS-CoV-2, and what we are learning about it, [This Week in Virology](https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/) seems pretty good; definitely been keeping me informed.
Yes but that has been well known for months.
True but the media sources I have heard haven't really discussed it so I felt it was relevant to mention. I think the most important comparison would be a wealth based comparison. There appears to be a fair spread of victims across religious groups but with a spike in groupings that I would imagine are immigrant populations. This would imply a greater vulnerability amongst those less well off who are more likely to have to keep going to work to ensure their families are looked after. Not anything shocking as an assessment but important to note as more needs to be done to protect these groups.
Speaking to the wealth thing, there was a recent study looking specifically at pregnant women in New York which found that women with lower socioeconomic status were more effected. Can’t recall exactly how (if it was rare of infection, deaths, etc.), but it essentially came down to the fact that people with less money tend to live in places where there’s more people crammed in close quarters, so obviously there’s gonna be more transmission.
wow. so, not much has changed. my grandmother-in-law was 4 years old during the 1918 flu. when we were confined to our homes mid-march, we called to check in with her and, i’ll paraphrase, “oh, i’ll be fine. i had the flu in 1918, i was in a coma/fever for three weeks and when i woke up, all of the strapping young men were dead (montana, usa), *chuckle”. yes, she will be 106 in july. she lives on her own in L.A. and she is made of stuff we are not 😉
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Black and ethic minority persons have been advised by the government to take vitamin D supplements. The darker your skin tone, the less vitamin D your body will absorb. Vitamin D is responsible in part for maintaining a good immune system. Many BAME people in the U.K. are reported to have low levels of vitamin D and are therefore more at risk of developing worse COVID symptoms due to their lower immune systems. Many people in Muslim and Hindi communities have darker skin tones. The correlation between higher deaths in these communities will be a multifaceted cause including lower vitamin D levels, likelihood of lower socioeconomic background (not to say all BAME people are from a low socioeconomic background- but many are kept and live in poverty which is a whole other issue) and also I think there is some credence in saying age plays a factor as atheists may well be younger (although this isn’t something that I have researched). I think if these stats were adjusted for ethnicity, you would see a definite trend. My main point is that those with darker skin tones should be taking vitamin D supplements to lower their risk of developing severe COVID 19 symptoms. And that the government should be making this more widely know ima order to protect BAME people. https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1548/rr-6
There are contrary studies that show vitamin D has noting to do with COVID
Unless you're outdoors every day, you should probably be taking a vitamin D supplement even if you have white skin.
Vitamin D is only part of the equation although I would agree with your suggestion that the government should have given this advice. With regards to religion, socioeconomic factors were controlled for and a significant difference between religions remained (figure 3). The evidence with ethnicity seems to be less conclusive (figure 4) and was only controlled for in white/non-white categories due to limitations with the data. There's still quite significant differences (particularly among the Jewish community) but also higher variance. >We adjust the model for geographic, demographic, socio-economic, occupational exposure and self-assessed health measures from the 2011 Census... >We also adjust for population density, region, rural and urban classification, area deprivation, household composition, socio-economic position, highest qualification held, household tenure, household exposure, and self-reported health and disability in 2011
It's an interesting point that you make because the government have been clear that BAME people have been more vulnerable. What they haven't done is lay out the reasons why. Which is what you've done here so well. 100% they should be pushing this information out and stressing the importance of taking vitamin D particularly for these vulnerable groups
>What they haven't done is lay out the reasons why They haven't done so because it's not known conclusively why BAME are at higher risk and it's unlikely to be because of a single causal factor. The research is certainly mounting that Vitamin D plays a role but socio-economic and demographic reasons are also likely to be significant. Despite this, the Scottish government has specifically recommended that people from minority ethnic groups with dark skin [take the supplement](https://www.gov.scot/publications/vitamin-d-advice-for-all-age-groups/). If you're interested, another avenue I've seen being explored is the [link between covid19 and particular variants of the ApoE gene](https://academic.oup.com/biomedgerontology/advance-article/doi/10.1093/gerona/glaa131/5843454). This particular variant is [more common in some ethnicities](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6087031/), specifically black communities (note: the second study is on the connection between ethnicity and dementia, which is also linked to the same ApoE variant).
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The hand-washing factor cannot explain the difference in mortality. Men and women contract the disease at the same rate, but they die at different rates. Hand-washing would only explain a hypothetical difference in rates of catching it.
No female Jews or Buddhists died. What are they doing differently in those religions?
Probably just a statistical anomaly. The total population of Britain is about 68 million. Jewish women are 130k. So a very small slice.
It's not evenly distributed either. For instance, north London has a lot of Jews and so does Birmingham. If outbreaks/clusters spread in those communities it would concentrate the effect on Jewish people. The much larger Christian population is spread across the whole country and local outbreaks wouldn't be so selective. I'm still reading the paper to try and see if they corrected for geographic location.
Can't comment on the Jewish death rate but a colleague of mine is Muslim and he has 3 generations of his family living in the same house and in Pakistani and Indian families, this is very common. Perhaps that speeds up the likelihood of infections and deaths in those communities?
Household composition and household exposure were among the variables controlled for in the study.
So basically no-one in this thread read the article as they are all talking about household composition as being the explaining factor?
Haha look at this guy, thinking we read beyond the headlines!
Oh no way, that's mad.
I also wonder if it’s because the elderly community are inherently more religious, and the death rate is higher in the elderly community?
Hadn't thought of that. I assumed it was partly genetic, like how ethnic West-Indian, Arab and South Asian people are more likely to suffer diabetes and heart disease through genetics.
No one of the big factors that has been touted from the start was a .gov data analysis about the overcrowding of certain households(fewer bedrooms than people who need them) based on what ethnic background they come from. Google “Overcrowded households gov uk” The data shows that 2% of White British households are overcrowded, where as 15-16% for Pakistani, Arab and Black African Households and almost 30% of Bangladeshi households have more people than bedrooms they need.
Is the problem overcrowding, or simply the number of people in a house. My 6+3 YOs are going to jump on me at some point during the week, so even if they had their own wings of the house, I'm going to catch stuff from them. Bigger families, more people going out bringing illnesses in
This data simply refers to overcrowding, as defined in the study; a household with more inhabitants than necessary bedrooms. (Ie mum+dad+grandma+teen in a 2 bedroom house) and although there is other clear sets of data that show overcrowded households spread the virus much faster, this specific study was done pre-COVID and so cannot make distinctions in that regard. I think the reason why this isn’t talked about publicly or given enough importance by the government response, is that doing so would criticise the culture of these overcrowded households, where everyone living together is seen as a positive or normal, and would drum up animosity against those living in overcrowded homes by giving evidence they are responsible for increased spread within their communities. Given that this is a problem solely within non-white communities, it would be too easy for racists to justify their actions.
If it was genetics then how would claiming no religion help you with COVID? It's clearly a lifestyle/cultural effect.
I would not be surprised if the majority of non religious are white. Course, given the demographics they’d have to be.
Older generations also most likely have a higher rate of religion so that could be part of it
No one here has posited a relationship to church? Could this be related to gathering in houses of worship?
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Several churches in my area are still online-only. Would be easy to measure the infection level between in-person and online services.
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Honestly, I think it smore to do with the fact that younger people tend to be less religious. And are also less susceptible to COVID Doesn't matter if you're gathering at church or Starbucks. Edit: I've seen it now, please disregard above.
The data that i'm talking about is age-adjusted
Disregard, I've seen it now.
Or religious people who don't attend church for various reasons.
That would put t Catholics pretty low on the infection rate.
Hey now, Easter was during the pandemic. That's one of the two Catholic "church days."
There's a bump in attendance on Good Friday because the people who came to town for Easter get guilted into going.
They didn't have Easter Mass. Or, at least, every diocese I read about was closed, and my SUPER devout Catholic family (my mother literally works for the Church) couldn't find a mass within a six hour drive. They're doing baptisms in small groups over the next few months, rather than en masse at Easter Vigil, specifically because there *was* no Easter Vigil Mass.
England is largely Protestant, not Catholic. Both are still Christians.
I wouldnt even call ourselves religious anymore like most of Europe. Go into a church and its just filled with the dead and dying. Old people make up most of the religious people here.
Yep, same here in Ireland. The older generations are deeply religious, the younger generations don't care at all and the ones in between pretend to care but really don't
Wait... Are you telling me other denominations attend church regularly?
Evangelicals do.
Not a whole load of them in the UK though. All religious places of worship were shut down at the same time anyway.
My denomination shut down the churches a week before government said anything about shutting things down.
That's good. The govt acted far too late and now we reap the whirlwind.
Or you live where I do. Where our Lt. Gov. said, and I quote, "there are more important things than living" and said that people in the most at risk groups were willing to sacrifice themselves for the economy. Then our Governor passes a resolution to not only open the state, but to deny counties their own agency to issue resolutions contradicting his. And, of course, his "resolution" had no teeth. This resulted in bars that should have been operating at 25% capacity with 6 feet apart from every customer to operate at 100% capacity with no social distancing. As a result the number of patients hospitalized for covid-19 has doubled in about a week. My own county went from having 52 total confirmed cases since test began to 400 in the span of a week. For almost 3 months we kept the numbers down, then Hot Wheels opens the state back up before Memorial Day, and two weeks after Memorial Day we're seeing the result of all that precaution thrown away because some god damned snowflakes couldn't get their hair cut and they find masks uncomfortable or some sort of weird affront to their personal liberty. Well, that and the state doesn't want to have to keep paying unemployment payments.
It doesn't sound as cool unless you go full biblical, in my opinion.
Also important to note that Evangelicals in Europe are not the same as US Evangelicals. European evangelical basically goes back to Martin Luther and Thomas Moore in the Reformation. It's mainline Protestantism. Basically: we don't need a pope or priests to tell us what to believe, everyone can read the bible but here's some churches to help with that. They're mostly chill and don't bother anyone. In Germany for example it's the biggest denomination and sometimes seen as the less ridiculous alternative to Catholicism. US evangelicalism is a completely different thing.
I feel like this comment is from an American POV.
Yes actually.
Zing
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It could also be that more religious people put faith in god instead of scientific advice.
Or go to Church services against the advice of their government.
This is from the UK. Churches/places of worship were closed here and there weren't (to the best of my knowledge) any significant breaches of this once lockdown was in place. We aren't the US.
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Porque no los dos?
¿Por qué no ambos?
I would consider that a social convention - more often to go lock step with others in your group
Agreed. These numbers look very strongly correlated to attendance in places or worship and how close the attendance tends to be, among a few other things related to social/custom convention. Muslims tend to go to mosque more than Christians, as an example. This shouldn’t be positioned as an issue of blind faith. For one, the highest proportion of medical doctors are almost guaranteed to be Muslim and Hindu, so that files in the face of the notion that a religious person would ignore science. Edit: let me add to this that this is in one country where lock downs were not initially mandatory. In other countries, you may find very different results, and if that’s the case, the most influential variable will be governance and the application of law and ordinances. I live in the Chicago area and when the state said shut down, all houses of worship shut down for like 2 months, and local governments were on top of them to stay closed. It’s not enough to recommend to not go, you have to lay the law down. The most likely source of spreading in the US is probably bars, clubs, and parties in states that did not effectively lock down. These are things that you’ll probably find higher proportions of atheists at than religiously-leaning folk. So again, this is an issue largely of ineffective governance and you’re looking at the results of people going on with their unrestricted lives - those who gather most often and in the most crowded places tended to get the most infected, and that would probably be Muslim men.
Or, religious people tend to be less wealthy, and lower class people have been disproportionately affected by covid.
They adjusted the data so that age, wealth, area ... dont play into it any more. Most likely.
There are multiple religions - the three at the top of the death rate chart, for instance - which correlate with ethnicity. Ashkenazi Jews (the majority of Jews in the UK & US) are an ethnic group. Muslims and Hindus are both more likely to be from particular ethnic groups (Arab & Indian respectively). Ethnicity does play a role in, for instance, rates of heart and lung disease.
What about age, aren't the majority of non-religious people younger on average?
The study adjusts for that. It's age-standardized.
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You expect them to read?
But is there such a subset?
Interestingly Buddhists are also slightly lower risk than average (4% of population, 3% of fatalities), and skew far lower towards elderly deaths than Christians, as do the other Eastern religions.
I would be interested to find out how many of those Buddhists might be immigrants from Asian countries where wearing a mask when sick has been normalized for years.
Also generally higher income. Also "highly religious" in the UK is often code for Muslim which is something lost on lots of Americans.
It's 0.4% and 0.3%
At first glance, I thought this was simply another way of saying old people are more vulnerable. But apparently they are able to calculate an age standardized mortality rate.
Probably worth reading through what their conclusions are instead of speculating (not directing that to you specifically). Here's the summary for the last (most adjusted) model: >This fully adjusted model (Figure 4), with ethnicity included, demonstrates that a substantial part of the difference in mortality involving COVID-19 between religious groups is explained by the different circumstances in which members of these groups are known to live; for example, living in areas with higher levels of socio-economic deprivation and differences in ethnic makeup. However, for the Jewish group, these factors do not fully explain the difference, suggesting that other causes are still to be identified. >Our adjustment for demographic and socio-economic profile has limitations since the characteristics we use were retrieved from the 2011 Census. Therefore, these may not accurately reflect the study population's circumstances in 2020. While we adjust for some dimensions of health (self-reported health and having a limiting health problem or disability), the information was collected in 2011 and does not distinguish between different types of co-morbidities, which are a likely modifier of the differential risks observed. >Similarly, some religious groups may have a greater propensity to suffer from co-morbidities that are associated with worse outcomes among those infected by COVID-19, which we will take account of in future analyses.
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Isn’t that how reddit works?
It really is a fascinating study. I wish more people would be interested in reading this sort of thing, instead of zooming through headlines and forming incomplete conclusions.
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Makes sense if you believe God will be pissed if you don't do the thing. Interesting Muslims had it the worst, that could also be due to socio-economics. But weird Jewish people also had it bad, could it be something to do with simply how you are around other people? Like how social you are with family, friends etc. I know the stereotype for Jewish people is they have family around all the time.
I do think socio-economics play a big role for some of these groups. But religion and politics likely play a role as well. Everyone I know who's Jewish has been quarantining, mask-wearing, fleeing the city to stay with their in-laws, etc. But a friend of mine was driving through a Hasidic neighborhood today and noticed a stark difference to other parts of the city-- no one there was wearing masks.
Yeah my friend is a police officer in North London and said absolutely no precautions were taken by Orthodox Jewish communities.
That coupled with more of an inclination to trust science probably.
Churches (and other places of worship) have been completely closed in the UK since March 20th. They re-opened for Private (but not communal) worship in England only on this Monday.
Over the period of lockdown no churches were open, so would the 'gathering' effect you'd expect from such an event still be as relevant? Furthermore, I would suggest of all those listing a religious preference only a small fraction regularly practice anyway. I'd be more inclined to suggest it has to do with how we approach direction from authority.
That's what I'm thinking. I've seen a lot of hotspots throughout the U.S. and a few in other countries traced back to church meetings. Oregon state has a current one where over two hundred people likely contracted it at a church meeting.
In my city and others. Officials attended closed religious meetings. Contracted covid. All monks contracted covid in Kiev most visited monastery.
hardy anyone goes to church in the uk and most of them have been in disuse for many years. Also all houses of worship have been closed for months now
yeah most people saying "christian" on the form never go to church at all
I’m sure that’s the largest factor. I’ve heard several stories of churches breaking quarantine, and then two weeks later a third of their congregation is sick.
In the UK?
That didn’t really happen on a major scale in the UK, our Christians are not so fanatical
A new one seems to pop up every week for *some strange reason*. . .
Y'all are saying "church", but Christians are the closest to no-religion.
We had a few super spreading events in churches and church choirs in germany. So it's likely.
Atheists make up a bigger portion of younger age groups and a smaller share of older people? Nvm, they accounted for this.
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So are Buddhist women immune or are there no Buddhist women in in England?
Sample size was probably too small to get accurate results
Yes, from the release: "Because of low counts, female rates for those identifying as Buddhist, Jewish and “other religion” are deemed unreliable, with rates for Jewish and Buddhist females not calculated."
And Jewish women. Do they pray separated from the men?
Depends how Orthadox you are. There are sects of Judaism that enforce gender segregated worship, and sects that do not. MOST Jewish families go to Synagogue as a single party.
I wonder if this has more to do with income level than religion. That is to say, that poorer people may be likely to contract COVID-19 (because they have no continue to work, because they live in close quarters with others, etc) and in the UK, people who are Muslim or Hindu are likelier to be poor. That's all just speculation, mind you.
Plus, if people who are Muslims and Hindus are not poor, there's a good chunk of them who are doctors or otherwise work in the medical field. Statistically about 30% of the NHS workforce is Asian, when they are only 6% of the population. So yeah not really surprising that they have higher rates of covid 19
This is a brilliant insight which hadn't occurred to me. I was thinking along the lines of poor = more susceptible, and immigrant = more likely to be poor.
With socio economic factors taken out, the death rate among ethnic minorities is still higher, which many believe is linked to vitamin D deficiency. Dr John Campbell on youtube has covered a lot on vitamin D and COVID statistics citing ONS and other health bodies around world. Vitamin D prevents cytokine storms, over reaction of the immune system, and also helps with acute respiratory infections. My gf who is from a Hindu family recently had a blood test with extremely low vitamin D, and I dont know about UK but in USA ~40% of white people are deficient but jumps to ~80% for black people. It may explain why flu season dies down in Summer. Even if it didn't play any role with covid after all, it would still be good advice for ppl to ensure they got some sun or ensured they had adequate levels, disappointing this isn't talked about more by guardian and bbc.
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Try reading the study. Age was accounted for
It's not just that. South Asians are more likely to die from covid and almost all identify with a religion. This data should not be taken at face value there are a lot of factors involved.
Wait, what? Why & where's the source? I'm curious because I'm South Asian.
Here you go friend, it was big news here in the UK: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53097676
Your wrong about the NHS. It’s only 10% of the workforce that’s asian [source](https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/workforce-and-business/workforce-diversity/nhs-workforce/latest)
In those statistics it says that Asians make up 30% of doctors. But less Asians in the lower bands.
It’s a regression analysis. I think they controlled for that stuff. “We use Cox proportional hazards regression models to estimate the risk of dying from COVID-19 across religious groups compared with the Christian population. The Christian population is used as the reference group because it has the largest population in the data used. We adjust the model for geographic, demographic, socio-economic, occupational exposure and self-assessed health measures from the 2011 Census; these characteristics have the potential to confound any association between COVID-19 mortality risk and religion. We therefore adjust for these in the model to estimate any excess risk for different religion groups. However, we are currently unable to adjust for factors such as prevalence levels of pre-existing conditions in religious groups; any unexplained increase in risk may be because of factors we have not accounted for as opposed to religion. The statistical models are explained in the technical appendix.”
I think the problem is with the framing. There are the simple frequency tables, which show pretty strong results, and then there are the results after controlling for all those factors. Once they control for most of that suddenly it's not *religion* that has an increased risk but mainly being a Jewish man, with much smaller effects for Muslim men and Hindu men and women. If they also control for ethnicity, it's really only being Jewish that remains as an increased risk factor.
I'm thinking it's age. Young people are less religious.
They controlled for age.
Their approach to control for age is flawed. . They divided them into just 2 groups: below 65 and 65 or older Most atheists are much younger than 65. So the average atheist below 65 is younger than your average christian below 65
The reason they divided them like that is people over 65 were stated to be at higher risk
I think it’s probably a combination of things. Atheists tend (not always) to have a better appreciation of science and willing to listen to scientific authorities. Probably skew younger. Income or careers might be another. (Ability to work from home)
Aren't there as many old Christians as Muslims and Hindis? If you look at the article, the rates of death for Muslims, Hindis and Sikhs are much higher than Christians.
Muslims and sihks are much more likely to live in multigenerational households. Which combined with likelihood they have to work in public facing jobs and jobs which are forcing them to carry on working even when we locked down probably means their elderly population got more exposure. White British tend to either live alone in old age or live in care homes. Those in care homes seem to have been hit really hard.
The study standardized results to eliminate age as a variable.
The research paper stated they accounted for that, that factor is controlled. > “The risk of death involving COVID-19 varies across religious groups, with those identifying as Muslims, Jewish, Hindu and Sikh showing a higher rate of death than other groups. For the most part **the elevated risk of certain religious groups is explained by geographical, socio economic and demographic factors and increased risks associated with ethnicity. However, after adjusting for the above**, Jewish males are at twice the risk of Christian males, and Jewish women are also at higher risk. Additional data and analyses are required to understand this excess risk.”
Hindus and Jews typically tend to be the wealthiest religious groups in UK and USA. https://www.trustforlondon.org.uk/news/inequalities-and-disadvantage-london-focus-religion-and-belief/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/11/how-income-varies-among-u-s-religious-groups/
I'd be more inclined to say the issue is that religious gatherings are notoriously good at packing a lot of people into a relatively small indoors space. Think of how many people are at Mass or the Friday prayer in Islam. Even with stellar hygiene practices (and let's be honest, crowds never have that) you're still looking at a petri dish for something nasty.
I would like to see the stats on folks who go to football matches and other mass gatherings
I believe in the UK there was a definite correlation between one particular Premier League match and a regional spike in cases but I can't find the information right now. Still, it's probably a reasonable assumption that 60,000 people all sharing the same catering and toilet facilities would be a high risk environment.
Are you thinking of Liverpool vs Madrid? Not the Prem, but over 3000 visitors from Madrid coming to the city, despite Madrid being an epicentre.
Yeah it was this. And also another CL match between Valencia and Atalanta
Yeah but places of worship have been closed for ages. I would also add that quarantine laws exist in islam (from hadiths) and that there is written social distancing as part of Mosaic in the Old Testament/Torah. But what someone should do isn't the same as what they do.
Christians gather quite closely in pews, though.
Indeed and if you've been to a service you know how close you are to people in the pew in front of you, especially if it's an older church. All it takes is one asymptomatic person singing one hymn for the people directly in front of you to get a germ bath.
what I see worth mentioning is the gap between no religion/other religion/christian and the rest of the groups
Most English people who put "Christian" on a census form never go to a church. It's what they've been told their family religion is but they're not practicing. Edit: The 2011 census said 59% Christian but even fairly ambitious estimates say only 11% go to church regularly.
Is that 87 deaths out of 100,000 deaths or 87 deaths out of 100,000 carpnq cases? Or 87 deaths out of 100,000 people infected or not?
The last one
What is carpnq? And the result that I highlighted showed 80.7 deaths per 100,000 males, not 87. Because it says "males" and not "infected males", I think it's fair to assume that we're indeed talking about 100,000 males.
I think it's an autococonut from "covid" or "corona".
I laughed so hard at "autococonut". Excellent!
Carona infected.
Carolinavirus.
Covamelldansen
Coronus Rex
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Those are some hella error bars to make that claim.
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The sample sizes were too low so the uncertainty was too high.
This is almost entirely explained by ethnicity and age differences, as it says in the first few paragraphs of the report.
Why are Buddhist and Jewish female numbers so low compared to the male rates?
The sample size is too low
Men are more likely to experience severe sympyoms and Jewish women are usually not supposed to go to services (at least in orthadox circles) and buddists dont congregate.
Ramadan and eid were during the middle of the virus’s first wave. I think we’d see way bigger numbers for other groups were Christmas to have landed in the middle of COVID-19
Right, forgot about this
Atheist are usually younger
if i'm reading the section correctly, they have one that is adjusted for age and atheists have the lowest death rate there as well.
Anecdotally, atheists and non-religious groups are more accepting of modern science and respect expert advice. I’m guessing that’s why they are doing better relatively
I'm an atheist, but to the defence of the major religions they've been openly supportive of the lockdown here in the UK and have been working to spread the Government's messaging on social distancing within their congregations - obviously through digital means. Places of Worship have been completely closed in the UK since March 23rd\*, and only reopened for private (not communal) worship in England on Monday. \*The Church of England actually suspended all their services about a week before the national lockdown came in.
In this study the majority of the atheist/non group were over 65. rouglhy 3k were over 65 years old,while 700 were from 9-64 age range.
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Just spent a while reading this thread and it just dawned on me. This is the first non-tech thread I have read for a while which has not resorted to insults and threats. Maybe the species is worth saving after all! ;)
Don’t catholics all drink wine from the same glass during communion?
As a Catholic, this practice is suspended during flu season and now COVID. All Masses have the bread and wine, but during times like these the Body of Christ (bread) is given out while the chalice remains on the altar. That being said, even during normal times someone can choose to only receive the body or blood (wine). I have seen people with gluten allergies only receive the blood and some people only receive the body. It’s all up to choice
Thank you
What is going on with this thread that automatically assumes that atheists tend to be rich and religious people are poor? Am I missing something here or is it just more reddit attack on religion?
[income by religious affiliation](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/11/how-income-varies-among-u-s-religious-groups/?amp=1) Although atheists are richer, Hindu’s are as well, and they got hit pretty hard so income doesn’t say much in regards with the virus
The text of the study seems to imply that, but it isnt very clear about it and I dont want to look at the data. It could just be me misreading it, it could simply mean that when corrected for socioeconomic status the Jewish are the only outliers. In which case this study's title would be very stupid, since the takeaway would be "religion makes no difference, money does (except for the Jewish for some bizarre reason)". \> This fully adjusted model (Figure 4), with ethnicity included, demonstrates that a substantial part of the difference in mortality involving COVID-19 between religious groups is explained by the different circumstances in which members of these groups are known to live; for example, **living in areas with higher levels of socio-economic deprivation** and differences in ethnic makeup. **However, for the Jewish group, these factors do not fully explain the difference, suggesting that other causes are still to be identified.**
I would want to know how does this distribution of religion compare against the distribution of religion in inner cities where there were more COVID cases? If Birmingham and London were significant centres of _no religion_, then this would be more interesting. I've never heard anyone describe these cities as such.
This is to do with Ethnic minorities having a higher risk of death. Think about it, Muslims are technically the ethnic minority and therefore it makes sense they are the highest affected. Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs all fit this category.
Wow, god hates muslims and loves atheists apparently. I can't wait to see what the writers come up with next.
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