FHIR Chat · COVID mortality by age group

Stream: social

Topic: COVID mortality by age group

Dave deBronkart (Mar 04 2020 at 03:17):

As one of the many wondering about the wisdom of travel, aside from wise "WASH YOUR HANDS!" advice, I've been curious about who's most vulnerable. For brevity I'll just give the bottom line results. For me the focus column is the red boldface on right: risk of death rises sharply in older decades. (Mind you it's still a tiny percent of the whole population.)
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This started with a Washington Post article last week with a chart on incidence and mortality by age decade (30-39 etc) in China. What it didn't take into account was the age distribution in China, so I found that and blended it in, then did arithmetic.

If anyone wants to see the spreadsheet behind that summary table I'll send it, but it's not spectacular...

Limitations: that's China data, which may have many differences with rest of world; the COVID data were as of Feb 11.

Dave deBronkart (Mar 04 2020 at 03:19):

(All 4 Italian deaths cited in the article were in 70s and 80s)

Lloyd McKenzie (Mar 04 2020 at 03:25):

What would be really interesting to know is death rates in smokers vs. non-smokers

Dave deBronkart (Mar 04 2020 at 03:37):

It appears that any co-morbidity affects chance of death, and of course smoking brings lots of "co." From STAT today: Who is getting sick, and how sick? A breakdown of coronavirus risk by demographic factors
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Brendan Keeler (Mar 04 2020 at 06:26):

The way it affects different age groups that disproportionately is wild. Assume that's the case for other pandemics but need to look into it more.

Dave deBronkart (Mar 04 2020 at 11:56):

Well, it seems to hit compromised populations. People with ordinary resistance, it seems, aren’t at the same risk. But I’m just speculating - nobody should take this as wise advice