Demographic science aids in understanding the spread and fatality rates of COVID-19

[Story]

Abstract.
Governments around the world must rapidly mobilize and make difficult policy decisions to
mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. Because deaths have been concentrated at older ages, we highlight
the important role of demography, particularly how the age structure of a population may help explain
differences in fatality rates across countries and how transmission unfolds. We examine the role of age
structure in deaths thus far in Italy and South Korea and illustrate how the pandemic could unfold in
populations with similar population sizes but different age structures, showing a dramatically higher
burden of mortality in countries with older versus younger populations. This powerful interaction of
demography and current age-specific mortality for COVID-19 suggests that social distancing and other
policies to slow transmission should consider both the age composition of local and national contexts as
well as the social connectedness of older and younger generations. We also call for countries to provide
case and fatality data disaggregated by age and sex to improve real-time targeted nowcasting.


https://osf.io/fd4rh/?view_only=c2f0...g1-_aXQdGK0fEo

 

[JJackson]

Thanks for the link. I don't suppose you have seen anything on the high impact comorbidities in a similar vein? It would seem necessary to combine both data sets to get closer estimate of fatalities per population group.