Not technically deficient but a lot of people think the deficiency criteria needs to be revised substantially upwards.
Testing with different labs here in Europe for more than a decade, normal 25(OH)D reference range has always been above 30 ng/ml. Though recently they reduced the upper normal level from 100 ng/ml down to 70. 70 is where I've in average been, with about 7700 IU/d and lots of sunshine in recent years.
BTW - There have been persistent reports that covid is not running rampant in homeless communities in the US (thought I've recently seen one report to the contrary). One thing about the homeless - they generally don't lack for sun exposure and most you see will sport considerably more of a tan than the average office worker. I would suspect that their vitamin D levels tend to be a couple of standard deviations above the average and have wondered if that might be one of the reasons that covid hasn't hit that population too hard to date.
My anecdotal experience working at a night-time shelter for homeless: We had 1 guest turn positive. Was placed for 10 days in a single flat for quarantine. Tough being badly diabetic with ulcers on his legs (Italian on top), he never got any symptoms and after 10 days tested negative again. All other guests in the homeless-shelter remained in quarantine for 10 days too. All without symptoms and tested negative again after 10 days.
Though our guests in living-quarters don't have to wear masks all the time (eating, smoking, sleeping, .. etc.), we doing nightshifts were always wearing N95 masks, therefore didn't need to go into quarantine ourself. And tested negativ throughout. 5 of us doing nightshifts.
On the other hand: in our ambulant daytime counceling department, though being extra careful with hygiene, N95 mask and more varied clients, even 5 out of 8 co-workers tested positive and each had to stay at home in quarantine for 10 days. Nobody of them could trace the infection. Luckily, almost all of them had it mildly, only one of them 1 evening was on the brink of going to the hospital, but the next morning the very high fever broke (additonally as someone very overweight).
So in my everyday example, homeless people most of the time with compromised immunity from addictions till now didn't get affected at all (except for having to stay in quarantine for 10 days, which is kind of nice usually having to stroll for 10 hours a day though the streets in freezing temperatures). We from the nightshift all the time interacting with unprotected clients didn't get affected either.
But for some reason our well-organized daytime counceling co-workers meeting only 1 client at a time (usually not homeless, but at the brink of it) most got it.
Edited by pamojja, 19 January 2021 - 06:51 PM.
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