Unless you have been hiking solo across Antarctica, you are aware that the rest of the world is caught in the grip of a worldwide Covid-19 pandemic. As of June 25, 2020, 9.4 million people across the world have been confirmed to have the disease. As of June 24, 2020, 477,271 of those people have died from the disease. Both numbers are still rising unabated.

These figures are sobering enough for everyone, but some groups of people are far more likely to die from a Covid-19 infection than others. The country you live in affects your chances, since some countries have proven much more effective at dealing with the disease than others. Other factors include comorbidities, which are medical conditions that you have at the same time as the Covid-19 infection. The one factor that has a greater effect than all the others combined, is your age.

The comorbidities that make it more likely that you will die if you are infected include:

• Chronic cardiac disease
• Uncomplicated diabetes
• Non-asthmatic chronic pulmonary disease
• Asthma
• Obesity

Advanced age could also be considered a comorbidity. The older people get, the less robust and healthy they tend to be. Whether you consider advanced age to be a comorbidity or just a normal fact of life, it has become clear that advanced age is a better predictor of whether a person will die of a Covid-19 infection than any other factor. If a person, in addition to being older, also has one or more of the listed comorbidities, the chance of dying is magnified.

This chart, from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States shows the breakdown of deaths by age group for over 95,000 deaths in the USA by Covid-19.  For this sample, which covers a large majority of total US Covid-10 deaths through June 25, 2020, shows relatively low mortality through age 49, followed by a big jump from the 40-49 cohort to the 50-64 cohort. From there, the death rate marches up inexorably. 31.8% of the people who were confirmed to have died from Covid-19 were 85 years old or older. The picture isn’t much prettier for people in the 75 to 84 age cohort, where I find myself. We are 26.1% of the people who die.

In the UK, the prognosis isn’t any better. In a study preprint that can be found on medarxiv.org, records for 16,749 UK hospitalized patients are analyzed.

The median age of patients in this dataset was 72 years. Of those:

• 29% were diagnosed with chronic cardiac disease
• 19% were diagnosed with uncomplicated diabetes
• 19% were diagnosed with non-asthmatic chronic pulmonary disease
• 14% were diagnosed with asthma
• 47% had no documented reported comorbidity

Overall outcomes:

• 49% of patients were discharged alive
• 33% had died
• 17% had not reached an endpoint at the time data was taken

Out of the overall group, 17% required admission to high-dependency or intensive care units. Out of this subgroup:

• 31% were discharged alive
• 45% had died
• 24% had not reached an endpoint at the time data was taken

Finally, of those requiring and receiving mechanical ventilation:

• 20% were discharged alive
• 53% had died
• 27% had not reached an endpoint at the time data was taken

The bare facts are pretty grim. If you are sick enough from Covid-19 to be hospitalized, your chance of walking out of the hospital, or even being rolled out alive in a wheelchair is not anything to celebrate. In the case of this study, less than half of the patients were discharged alive. Some who had not yet reached an endpoint might have later been discharged alive, although requiring a longer period of care is not a good sign for survival.

Clearly, being hospitalized for Covid-19 is something that should be avoided. To do that, don’t get infected in the first place. Wear your mask; keep at least six feet away from other people, avoid large gatherings. You know the drill.

Some people never develop symptoms even though they are infected. It is especially important that such people follow all the precautions. They would feel terrible if they were to discover that their mother, their aunt, or an older close friend died, because they passed the SARS-Cov-2 virus on to her.

BIO:

Allen G. Taylor is a 40-year veteran of the computer industry and the author of over 40 books, including Develop Microsoft HoloLens Apps Now, Get Fit with Apple Watch, Cruise for Free, SQL For Dummies, 9th Edition, Crystal Reports 2008 For Dummies, Database Development For Dummies, Access Power Programming with VBA, and SQL All-In-One For Dummies, Third Edition. He lectures internationally on astronomy, databases, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He also teaches database development and Crystal Reports through a leading online education provider. For the latest news on Allen’s activities, check out his blog at wwwallengtaylor.com or contact him at allen.taylor@ieee.org.