Known for its increasing number of elderly, Japan has the most aged citizens in its borders, with Italy close behind.
www.worldatlas.com
What can we infer from this list?
Why are each of these countries experiencing the DOOOM of corona virus very differently???
absolutely. On average aging populations or those who are considered elderly are going to have a higher proportion of people who are immunocompromised simply because your biology obviously degraded so to speak as you age.
so it’s no surprise that rates (as of now) are higher in areas with a higher aging population and the majority of deaths in the USA are weighted in that original elderly facility as of this point.
that said, that is a very very loose definition of what immunocompromised means (‘being old’ means more biological issues with immmunity).
what is not known or being discussed are the hypothetical factors associated with being immunocompromised/comorbidities independent of age related factors.
per the pre existing health conditions the fatality rate among those with diabetes is 8% and we have roughly 26 million people with diabetes. Diabetes is also a way of classifying someone as immunocompromised and affects all ages. You have 18 percent of persons 45-64 in this country considered diabetic as per the cdc. This increases with the elderly but there is potential elevated risk in a younger demographic with a diagnosis of diabetes versus no diagnosis.
what about the 13% fatality rate among those with confirmed corona virus with a pre-existing health condition of cardiovascular disease? Many millions who are under 65 in this country (but as I said that is not just stroke, heart disease etc but a large proportion with high blood pressure) diagnosed with some form of cvd are also at elevated risk. Not just the elderly.
Finally there have been several papers (linked:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.25.20027664v1) already show increased risk of severe events with at least one comorbidity (another paper showed increased severe events among cancer patients) and show increased risk of severe events in comparison to those with no comorbidities (focusing on China).
In the linked paper they adjusted for age in their analyses and their significant hazard ratios for having at least one morbidity versus none or at least 2 comorbidities versus none increased with comorbidity (endpoint: enrolled in icu, ventilation, or death as primary outcome). So basically severe outcomes independent of age showed clear increased risk of poor outcomes (again not just death).
These issues associated with comorbidities is at this stage are preliminary but should be taken very seriously.
now whether society should completely shut down etc is another story and obviously debatable. But there are some initial signals (coupled with quick spread) that are concerning.
