What the data says about underlying conditions and COVID-19 deaths in Beaufort County
Over 60% of COVID-19 victims in Beaufort County this year had cardiovascular disease, at least among those whose pre-existing conditions were reported to state health officials, according to data obtained by The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.
Roughly 38% of the people who died of COVID-19, meanwhile, had diabetes.
Those findings mirror what’s been reported around the world: Certain underlying medical conditions put adults at increased risk of severe illness or death after contracting SARS-CoV-2.
It appears to be no different around the Lowcountry.
“That’s predictable,” said Dr. Faith Polkey, chief clinical officer at Beaufort Jasper Hampton Comprehensive Health Services. “People who have cardiovascular disease, people who are diabetic, really, really take heed.
“You definitely need to be wearing masks, limiting your social gatherings.”
The newspapers obtained the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control’s county-specific “comorbidities” data through a public records request.
The death data are incomplete, to a degree.
Information on whether COVID-19 victims had pre-existing conditions like cardiovascular disease, asthma or congestive heart failure wasn’t listed on some death certificates, according to DHEC.
For example, of 89 COVID-19 deaths reported in Beaufort County, data on cardiovascular disease wasn’t listed for 16 deaths.
So, in reality, 61.6% of 73 coronavirus victims — 45 people — had cardiovascular disease, the data show.
“The death certificate does not report comorbidities unless they contributed to the cause of death. There is a section on the death certificate for the certifier to report ‘other significant conditions contributing to death,’ but they will not list every comorbidity that the patient had,” DHEC said in a statement Friday.
Polkey, though, noted that even less data was available on pre-existing conditions identified among local COVID-19 cases.
Of 5,828 infections in the county, for example, about 84% of cases reported to DHEC — 4,908 — included no information about whether a person also had asthma.
BJHCHS sends DHEC a document called Form 1335 whenever someone gets tested for COVID-19, Polkey said. That lab form includes a space to note a patient’s symptoms, but no area to describe underlying health conditions.
“With mass testing, it wasn’t data that we were focused on collecting,” she said of pre-existing conditions. “We were focused on collecting demographics.
“Since you’re seeing 300, 400 people, you don’t have time to be ‘Well, what’s your cardiovascular disease?’”
Data on pre-existing conditions might be more helpful for scientists working to understand who’s likely to become very sick after contracting SARS-CoV-2, she said.
It’s not necessarily used to identify trends in who contracts the virus, as of now.
“The (Form 1335) does not request the comorbidities information as it is typically generated by other agencies,” DHEC said Friday.
Heightened risks
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that adults with cancer, chronic kidney disease, various heart conditions, weakened immune systems or sickle cell disease, among other things, are more likely to become seriously ill if diagnosed with COVID-19.
Obese adults and those who smoke also have heightened risks, according to the CDC.
More than 40% of COVID-19 fatalities in Beaufort County as of Friday afternoon were people 81 years or older, according to DHEC data.
Almost 39% of the county’s deaths were among 71- to 80-year-olds.
“If you look at the weight of the data, the risk group is very, very clear,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in an interview earlier this year with the Journal of the American Medical Association.
This story was originally published November 1, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
