What’s going on with covid death rates by age?
I assume/hope there’s a non-scary answer to this question, but I don’t have time to figure it out, so I’ll just throw it out here . . .
From the NYT today:
How can cases and deaths have declined by the same amount since January, given that older and more vulnerable people have been disproportionately vaccinated? Has the infection fatality rate risen among the young? Is this just an artifact of timing, lags, and maybe the choice of start date? Or . . . ?
My two cents.
I suspect that the time frame is part of it. Most of the really vulnerable old died last year in the first third of the pandemic and most of the treatment improvements came by the end of last year. By the beginning of this year most of the cases were in under 65’s and under 50’s, at least in my state.
The younger folk weren’t eligible until a month or so ago, and they are the least likely to rush to get the shot. If essential workers were among the first vaccinated, they are also the ones most likely exposed as well and the reduction of cases should come from the people most exposed to others. Not the old folks who had already survived to the beginning of this year by their own risk-averse behavior.
Was there any breakdown of cases by age? In my county, the vast majority of the cases in total were under 65 by a 5 or 6 to 1 margin, even though the over 65 population is far higher than average. Most of our deaths came last year, about half in one month, after the local care center had almost everyone come down with it. After that deaths were ones or twos a week, if any.
It’s been noted numerous times over the course of the past year that changes in death rate lags changes in infection rate. The primary cause is that death follows diagnosis by weeks, often up to two months.
The basis for the slowness of the decline in the death numeric.
As Rick said, shift that death curve 1 month back and you have a story that might make more sense. Also, I suspect that the end of the case rate plateau (late-ish April) will be reflected in the death counts shortly. I’d guess (hope?) that we will have an accelerated decline in death counts over the next month.
Makes sense Ian
Eric:
You “may” find your answer here: Age groups that sustain resurging COVID-19 epidemics in the United States | Science (sciencemag.org)
Perhaps the (decline in) case count is not really happening. The fact that seniors are more vaccinated could lead to testing that is no longer representative of the total population. If ratio of actual infections to tested infections is age dependent (with more untested/asymptomatic infections in younger people), then uneven vaccination results will produce uneven death/infection results.
“untested/asymptomatic” is not meant to be a ratio, just a clarification of why there are cases that do not show up in the data.
It looks like the death rate still lags the case rate. I’d be really concerned if it were the other way around. It would be scary to have a disease that kills one before one contracts it.
One recent difference I have noticed is that the case rate has uncoupled from the TSA boarding count. I imagine that a rising TSA boarding count is an indication of a lower COVID “fear factor”, so it made sense that as people grew less cautious, the case count would grow. Vaccination seems to have changed this.
We’re still not up for the TSA yet, but we did have a good road trip involving a lot of hiking. Just about everyone we met on the trail at least claimed to have been vaccinated suggesting that the kind of people who go hiking are also the kind of people concerned with their health. I expect this will be another busy summer in our national and state parks.
P.S. Our local carved wooden Sasquatch has ditched his mask and has presumably been vaccinated.
Just curious where in country hikers are discussing vaccination. Not happening in Wisconsin that I can tell and have made many hikes since December start of vaccination. Have seen a couple of shirts urging vaccination, but that’s all. Yesterday at Whitefish Bay Dunes SP lots of hikers, zero vaccine conversations.