Comparative risk from Covid-19 by age
I ran across what I thought was a pretty helpful way to look at mortality risk related to Covid 19 in Bloomberg (while the article is paywalled, they allow a certain number of free articles).
As many have debated endlessly, figuring out fatality rates is challenging real time because of uncertainty about number of cases, lags in death relative to reporting of cases. While not perfect, focusing more on gross mortality rates (e.g. deaths per capita rather than deaths per case) means we only have to look at one number. The author did this by age category, then adjusted deaths for several different estimates for deaths by the end of the year (100,000; 200,000 and 750,000). The author also looked at how a death total of 200,000 would impact, mortality rates by age group.
It very starkly shows how little this impacts the youngest. Even at 750,000 deaths for those under 14, your chance of dying from Covid-19 are substantially less than your chances from dying from the flu.
What may surprise is the risks for those in the middle. At 45 to 54 we are rapidly reaching the point where more people have died from Covid-19 than died from car accidents. For those over 55, we’ve already surpassed it.
Another way to look at this is to compare what the theoretical increase in mortality rate would be if Covid deaths were additive to all deaths (while I can imagine people quibbling with the concept, if you focus on it merely as a way to compare across age groups, I think it is pretty illuminating. For those under 24, the number is well below 1 for 100,000 deaths (the author calculated for 200,000, I halved it). For 45 to 54 it is 3.2%. Not much below the 3.5% for those 85 and older.
in other words, while your overall odds of dying if you are 45 to 54 of any cause is way lower than your odds of dying from any cause if you are 85 or older, if you were to die in 2020, chances that it would be from Covid-19 are actually not much lower than the chances it would be for someone much older.
This article isn't really all that enlightening. What did it really tell me? Nothing to be honest.
Oh, it kills older people and it can kill between 45-54 more than you would think. Why? I can only assume because by then you are probably more likely to be obese and have underlying medical conditions.
The article did nothing for me. My personal article would be that if you are between 40 and older then you should think about getting in shape, taking vitamin C, losing weight and if you have underlying medical conditions then avoid people. There you go.
‘Although everyone over 65 is considered to be at higher risk whether or not they have underlying conditions, as you can see in the chart below, more than 30 percent of every age group is at risk. Overall, nearly 40 percent of all Americans under 65 have a condition that makes COVID-19 more dangerous for them.’
40% of the population between 40-65 isolating themselves along with everyone over 65 is not likely to solve all of our economic woes.
For the record, I said 40-65 with underlying conditions should consider isolating themselves.
In regards to people of color, I don't think race has anything to do with it unless diabetes is more susceptible to a particular race. I can also imagine being locked up in close proximity to others doesn't help or a bad diet for that matter.
I find in interesting that people are getting away from the core issue here which is impacts people with underlying conditions and now those with agendas want to scare the populace with it impacts younger and race variables. Being politicized to expand all sorts of interests. I just heard about the toddlers so the fear mongerers are really trying to scare people back into the closet.
Always an outlier which shouldn't go to waste in controlling people.
It’s not about the mortality rate. Look at the people who are ‘recovering’ with longer term health issues. Honestly, the ignorance on this topic fascinates me. And by the way, doctors (globally) are seeing health risks spike for the ‘younger’.
Fear monger. There is no proof of this. At all. It IS about who is dying.
The percentage of people/kids suffering from complications is similar to complications from flu/ibuprofen/Tylenol usage. It happens but at such a small percentage it is considered acceptable. It is televised to scare people, scared people watch the news.
The CDC states the mortality rate for those 55-45 is .6% for men .4% for someone. 45-35 is .4% for men .2% for women. For those younger the rates improve. This is including people with multiple comorbidities. We need to protect those at risk and the rest of us need to move forward.