Scientists from the University of Pennsylvania found the COVID mortality age patterns changed significantly during pandemic.
The research is published in JAMA Network Open and was conducted by Irma Elo et al.
Early in the pandemic, older populations in the United States suffered the greatest death toll from COVID-19.
In the study, the team wanted to understand whether this mortality pattern changed as the pandemic continued.
They pulled all death certificates with COVID-19 listed as the underlying or contributing cause of death for three periods of time: an early surge from March to June 2020, a midwinter surge from November 2020 to February 2021, and the delta variant surge from July to October 2021.
The team found that between March 2020 and October 2021, the age pattern of COVID mortality changed in a striking fashion, with rates strongly dropping for those 80 and older and profoundly increasing for those 25 to 54.
The COVID-19 death age pattern changed in the same way for all groups, but the COVID rates were higher in working ages for Black and Hispanic people than for white people throughout the pandemic.
Future work will look at, for instance, why midlife COVID mortality went up so much in 2021.
The team says while differences in vaccination rates were likely an important factor, state policies, occupational risks, and a lack of access to health care may have also contributed.
Beyond that, the team continues to study mortality rates from the virus at the county and state levels, while delving deeper into implications by race and ethnicity.
For now, the latest findings point to one important public health solution, according to the team: “Get those younger people vaccinated”.
If you care about COVID, please read studies about why smokers have a lower risk of COVID-19, and vitamin D can be a cheap COVID-19 treatment.
For more information about COVID, please see recent studies about drug that can block multiple COVID-19 variants, and results showing aspirin, common anti-inflammatory drugs may prevent COVID-19 deaths.
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