Jordi Savall: I survived Covid

Jordi Savall: I survived Covid

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norman lebrecht

November 03, 2020

Message from the Spanish early music maestro:

My dear friends,

I am very pleased to give you some good news: after 21 days of being affected by the virus COVID-19, finally I have received a negative result in my last PCR. I am very happy to have overcome this illness without further consequences and to be able, after this long period of isolation, to return to my family life.

I sincerely thank my wife Maria for her care and help, which has been indispensable to overcome this hard experience. I am sending also my gratitude to all those who showed their support and sent me their thoughts and wishes for a good recovery. At the same time, I would like to express my solidarity with all those who are affected by this virus today and also with those who, because of the pandemic, are in a situation of great difficulty and economic and professional insecurity.

I hope to regain all my strength soon, so that I can resume my professional activity -within the current limits and restrictions imposed by the authorities in Spain and Europe-, and continue my personal commitment to music and musicians.

Take good care of yourselves and let’s keep on trusting in a better future.
Cordially,

Jordi Savall

 

Comments

  • Luca says:

    He has been lucky, thank goodness, as he is pushing eighty.

    • Karl says:

      Yes – one of the lucky 95% of people over 70 who manage to survive covid.

      • William Safford says:

        Karl, you did it again. Stop trivializing this pandemic.

        Jordi Savall, I’m glad that you are one of the survivors. Best wishes.

      • Doc Martin says:

        You are an idiot stop commenting on medical issues, leave it to health professionals.

        Dr John Campbell’s latest UK update, compares deaths from Flu, Pneumonia (CAP) and Cov-19 for UK, clearly Cov-19 shows much higher mortality.

        https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsduetocoronaviruscovid19comparedwithdeathsfrominfluenzaandpneumoniaenglandandwales/deathsoccurringbetween1januaryand31august2020

        Summary

        UK Deaths January to August 2020 (28 days of diagnosis)

        Deaths due to Cov-19 48,168

        Deaths due to Pneumonia 13,619 (Very common in A & E Respiratory sepsis can be a complication of Flu and Cov-19)

        Deaths due to Influenza 394 (Low number of cases)

        Case Study (4 April)

        Bojo (PM) Nearly died, required nasal canula, enriched oxygen mask, monitors were showing Ox Sats down, if I recall the idiot went on having meetings and shaking hands, etc!

        May have needed to be intubated, ventilated, improved so did not need it.

        Pulse oximeter, Heart rate, Oxygen saturation

        Cov-19 is clearly more dangerous than Influenza

        Most deaths due to Flu and Pneumonia occurred January 2020 but deaths were below 5 year average in every month ( January to August). Cov-19 deaths spiked in April

        Cov-19 (January – August) deaths much higher than those caused by Flu and Pneumonia from 1959 to 2020 (ONS started collecting data in 1959)

        Modern buildings Office blocks etc very good at spreading respiratory infection due to poor ventilation cannot open windows. Hospital wards windows formerly used to be opened for ventilation, modern designs do not allow for this.

        • Marfisa says:

          Accepting all that, is Karl’s statistic actually wrong? What is the percentage of people over 70 who survive, having contracted Covid-19?

          • Doc Martin says:

            No, he is way out with 95% of 70+ surviving Covid! I wish he would desist from his useless speculation.

            Many of the excess cardiac death have been in the under 65s, however the average age of a Covid-19 death is 82.4 years above the average life expectancy.

            It may well be that covid deaths have zero effect on average life expectancy whereas the preventable non-covid deaths from say Cancer, heart disease and miscarriage do. John Campbell’s youtube blog is worth watching.

          • Doc Martin says:

            That depends where you live, for example in UK those 70 and older having Covid-19, have a 60% mortality, the average cov-19 death being 82.4, from ONS data obtained from death certificates. Death certificates can have several causes listed, eg Pneumonia, Acute Kidney injury, Urosepsis, sepsis is linked with pneumonia and cov-19.

          • Doc Martin says:

            If 60% mortality for 70 and over, then 40% might possibly survive if they are very lucky and get ICU treated PDQ assuming they have no serious comorbidities, if they have (and most will), then it will be less than 40% survival. It will be touch and go for anyone 70+.

          • Karl says:

            My statistic is not wrong. Our World in Data compiled statistics from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Spanish Ministry of Health, and the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and found the case fatality rate for people age 70-79 in Spain is 4.8%.

            https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid

            If the mouthfoamers here who are calling me an idiot have alternative facts please cite them.

          • Dander says:

            China is unreliable and unbelievable mate get real.

          • Garech de Brun says:

            You are wrong mate, Doc knows best.

        • Brettermeier says:

          “You are an idiot stop commenting on medical issues, leave it to health professionals.”

          He read it somewhere online, so naturally, he’s a pro! 😉

          • Doc Martin says:

            Doc Martin only sources information on Cov-19 from reputable peer reviewed medical journals, eg Lancet, BMJ, he does do a cut and paste job on stuff found on the internet, try to keep up.

        • Karl says:

          From your paper: “For those aged 85 years and over, COVID-19 mortality rates were higher than both 2020 and the five-year average but only statistically significantly higher than 2020. The highest age-specific mortality rate was observed in those aged 85 years and over, with 1,744.3 deaths per 100,000 people. “

          • Marfisa says:

            Karl references https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid. Our world in data does appear to be a respectable enterprise, from a research team based in the University of Oxford (UK). Its figures do not all come from China, as Dander alleges.

            However, Karl selects the only statistic that confirms his case, Spain, 70-79yrs old, 4.6%. The website gives case-fatality rate statistics dating from February and March 2020 from four countries that could provide them (South Korea, Spain, China, Italy). For 70-79 yrs, the percentages are between 4.6% Spain, and 12.8% Italy. For 80+ years, it is between 13% South Korea and 20.26% Italy.

            I tried to find the ONS statistics Doc Martin refers to, but failed. If he could point us to the 60% mortality figure, that would be helpful. (I understand about comorbidities.)

            However, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics (as Disraeli probably did not say: https://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/lies.htm) and only a qualified statistician’s opinion would be really worth having. Not all musical or even medical people are so trained.

            I do not underestimate the dangers of this pandemic, I do support (and practice) SD, face-covering, and hand-washing, and I do accept there is a greater risk for the over-65s whatever their health condition. I just like to get facts as straight as possible.

  • Larry says:

    An amazing artist! We wish him well.

  • Le Křenek du jour says:

    Well done, mestre Jordi!
    Ben fet.
    Posa’t bé, en veurem aviat.

    As the song goes,
    Si estirem tots, ella caurà
    i molt de temps no pot durar.

  • Doc Martin says:

    I came across a study reported in Ebio Medicine, Bussani et al 2020, a collaboration between a group in Trieste and BHF Centre for Excellence, King’s College London. They used immunocytochemistry methods and studied the pathology of Cov-19 from post mortem samples.

    Persistence of viral RNA, pneumocyte syncytia and thrombosis are hallmarks of advanced COVID-19 pathology

    https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2352-3964%2820%2930480-1

    Cov-19 represents a unique pathology, distinct from other causes of ARDS. The long-term persistence of infected cells and the major structural changes detectable in the lungs after several weeks from first diagnosis could represent the anatomical substrate for long term complications in infected patients who survive the acute phase. Their findings provide a reference for future studies investigating the long-term consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection. In addition, the observation of numerous syncytial cells, which likely are the consequence of the fusogenic S-protein of SARS-CoV-2, together with the pathological evidence of endothelial dysfunction, pave the way to future investigations assessing whether the fusogenic SARS-CoV-2-infected cells might be causally linked to the local formation of thrombi.

    COVID-19 is characterized by extensive alveolar damage (41/41 of patients) and thrombosis of the lung micro- and macro-vasculature (29/41, 71%). Thrombi were in different stages of organization, consistent with their local origin. Pneumocytes and endothelial cells contained viral RNA even at the later stages of the disease. An additional feature was the common presence of a large number of dysmorphic pneumocytes, often forming syncytial elements (36/41, 87%). Despite occasional detection of virus-positive cells, no overt signs of viral infection were detected in other organs, which showed non-specific alterations. Interpretation: COVID-19 is a unique disease characterized by extensive lung thrombosis, long-term persistence of viral RNA in pneumocytes and endothelial cells, along with the presence of infected cell syncytia. Several of COVID-19 features might be consequent to the persistence of virus-infected cells for the duration of the disease.

    Anyone suggesting Cov-19 is not serious is evidently deluded. It can cause extensive lung damage, thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, it is very nasty indeed.

    (Doc Martin is a retired GP, amateur composer, antiquarian and Irish harpist based in Belfast).

    • Doc Karl says:

      41/41 of patients! The World Health Organization estimates 10% of the world’s population has contracted coronavirus. So they found 41 people out of 780 MILLION who had extensive alveolar damage. That’s a 0.0001% chance. How many people are going to cower in their basements over THAT?

    • Marfisa says:

      “Anyone suggesting Cov-19 is not serious is evidently deluded. It can cause …”. But would you at least agree that there are degrees of seriousness? That some (dare I say the majority) who are infected may not be ill at all, or suffer only mild symptoms? The cases studied in this report were clearly very serious ones, since the samples were post mortem. If your warning is that we are still finding out about the long-term damage that may be caused, perhaps even in non-symptomatic cases, yes, that is a weighty point.

      I am not trivialising the dangers of the pandemic.

  • Doc Martin says:

    I particularly enjoyed Jordi’s Monteverdi L’Orfeo. May he live long and prosper.

  • HL says:

    His aesthetic decisions does not cater to me, yet I still salute to Jordi’s recovery! So good to know that.

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