04-13-2020, 03:27 PM
I agree with you; your caveats are well taken.
The biggest to me is that pregnant women are by definition pre-menopausal and consequently lower risk. In addition, pregnancy has big effects on the immune system (it tends to somewhat depress the immune system, so it will make symptoms less prominent and in the context of COVID-19 that might be protective since there is some evidence that worse disease is due to an overeager immune system). The other major issue is that presumably the highly symptomatic group with moderate/severe disease is probably hospitalized before they show up in labor.
So, yeah, interpret with caution, and don't overly extrapolate.
Still, these data points are important.
BC
The biggest to me is that pregnant women are by definition pre-menopausal and consequently lower risk. In addition, pregnancy has big effects on the immune system (it tends to somewhat depress the immune system, so it will make symptoms less prominent and in the context of COVID-19 that might be protective since there is some evidence that worse disease is due to an overeager immune system). The other major issue is that presumably the highly symptomatic group with moderate/severe disease is probably hospitalized before they show up in labor.
So, yeah, interpret with caution, and don't overly extrapolate.
Still, these data points are important.
BC