Just A Mild Case of Pneumonia?!

On Sunday, 68-year old Hillary Clinton collapsed from what her handlers claim was a case of pneumonia that was diagnosed on Friday. Despite video which clearly shows her essentially unconscious as she is being dragged into her van, she was not taken to a hospital.

Instead, 90 minutes after she was taken to her daughter's apartment (!), she was out on the sidewalk, bending over and greeting a small child. This is amazing, given that pneumonia causes low oxygen saturation in the blood, increases the probability of dizziness while standing or bending over, and therefore increases the risks of falls.

An elderly patient who has just collapsed from pneumonia will not be bending over to greet a small child. This sequence of events does not comport with pneumonia. Below are some medical website quotes about pneumonia in the >65 crowd. Links are at the beginning of the paragraphs:

A number of studies have confirmed that there is a high rate of morbidity and mortality associated with pneumonia in the elderly (Fig. 1).[1-5] These high rates have continued to impede the efforts of healthcare professionals, despite significant improvements in therapeutic options and public health practices. One-sixth of the six million pneumonia cases that are reported each year occur primarily in those individuals 65 years and older requiring hospitalization for pneumonia.[6] Over 90% of all deaths from pneumonia occur in this older population.

Community-acquired pneumonia is one of the most common reasons for admission to a general intensive care unit (ICU). Up to 22% of patients hospitalized with pneumonia are admitted to the ICU,[3–5] approximately 18–56% of whom will die during hospitalization. Appropriate delivery of critical care services for patients with pneumonia is particularly topical and important given how common community-acquired pneumonia is in elderly patients, with approximately one million cases per year in those ≥65 yrs in the United States.

Older people have higher risk of getting pneumonia, and are more likely to die from it if they do. For US seniors, hospitalization for pneumonia has a greater risk of death compared to any of the other top 10 reasons for hospitalization.

While successful pneumonia treatment often leads to full recovery, it can have longer term consequences. Children who survive pneumonia have increased risk for chronic lung diseases. Adults who survive pneumonia may have worsened exercise ability, Cardiovascular disease, cognitive decline, and quality of life for months or years. (emphasis added)

The pneumonia and influenza mortality rate is much higher for those aged 65 years and older compared to younger age groups. About 85 percent of all pneumonia and influenza deaths occur in this age group, and it represents the seventh leading cause of death in this age group.

Her people didn't seem to be very upset about her "pneumonia", nor did they treat it with very much concern. They certainly did not exhibit the level of concern that would be warranted if this were a recently diagnosed condition that had just rendered their candidate unconscious. And how does someone recover in 90 minutes from that level of incapacitation, especially if it were induced by pneumonia? How does a 68-year old woman manage that? Receiving no apparent medical care during or after the episode? Seriously?
Whatever Hillary has, it is:

• deeply debilitating (obvious from the first video)
• rapid onset with "halo" (victim can feel upcoming episode, thus she made it to the van)
• transient (obvious from the second video)

There are a lot of things that can do that.
Pneumonia isn't one of them.