Middle-aged people, and not just the elderly,
have a dramatically higher risk of dying or developing serious illness from
COVID-19, new research from Britain showed Tuesday.
The
findings came in a new comprehensive analysis of virus cases in mainland China.
Researchers
from Britain analysed more than 3,600 confirmed COVID-19 cases as well as data
from hundreds of passengers repatriated from the outbreak city of Wuhan.
They
found that age was a key determining factor in serious infections, with nearly
one in five over-80s requiring hospitalisation, compared to around 1 percent
among people under 30.
Taking
into account estimates of the number of cases that may not have been clinically
confirmed — that is, mild or asymptomatic infections — the data showed the
hospitalisation rate of patients in their fifties was 8.2 percent.
The
study, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, estimated that the
mortality rate from confirmed COVID-19 cases in mainland China was 1.38
percent.
If
unconfirmed cases were taken into account, the death rate dropped to 0.66
percent.
The
authors of the research said that while this was significantly lower than
previous estimates, COVID-19 is still several times deadlier than previous
pandemic viruses, such as H1N1.
“Our
estimates can be applied to any country to inform decisions around the best
containment policies for COVID-19,” said Azra Ghani, a study co-author from
Imperial College London.
“There
might be outlying cases that get a lot of media attention, but our analysis
very clearly shows that at aged 50 and over, hospitalisation is much more
likely than in those under 50, and a greater proportion of cases are likely to
be fatal.”
Billions
of people have been confined to their homes around the world as governments
desperately try to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus.
As
of 1900 GMT Monday the virus had killed 36,374 people out of 757,940 cases
globally.
That
would mean 4.8 percent of all confirmed COVID-19 infections have proven deadly.
But
experts stress that without widespread testing it is impossible to know how
many people may have become infected and recovered.
This
means the true mortality rate is likely much lower, in line with The Lancet
study and previous research from China.
The
Lancet study showed that 18.4 percent of patients in their 80s were
hospitalised in China.
This
compared to 4.3 percent for 40 to 49-year-olds and roughly 1 percent for people
in their 20s.
According to
their modelling, the authors estimate that 50-80 percent of the global
population could contract COVID-19 — but that came with several caveats, as
modelling can’t account for behavioural changes such as hand washing and social
distancing.
Devi
Sridhar, professor and chair of Global Public Health, at the University of
Edinburgh’s Medical School, said that the assumption that most people would
become infected was leading governments, including in Britain, to abandon
measures that could help slow the pandemic.
She
tweeted on Tuesday that the models “resulted in the UK giving up on containment
too early & assuming everyone will get it.
“Planning
& preparing for unprecedented testing & using big data/apps for tracing
were taken off the table. In my view, we went down the wrong path,” she said.
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