Unmasked: Who does it Attack?

The novel Coronavirus knows its victims. Across the world, public health officials have been trying to find out who the most at risk of infected and lethal illness people are. That kind of data would better inform the public of precautions to take, and give health workers the knowledge they’ll need to aggressively provide treatment.

The Survey says: So far, 87% of cases in China were in people ages 30 to 79, the China Center for Disease Control stated last month, based on data from all 72,314 of those diagnosed with Covid-19 as of Feb. 11. That seems to imply that the virus is attracted more to biology than it is to lifestyle.

We can all agree that younger people, teens and individuals in their 20’s come in contact with many others in the course of their day, still they don’t seem to be contracting the disease at significant rates: The CDC states that only 8.1% of cases were 20-somethings, 1.2% were teens, and 0.9% were 9 or younger. The World Health Organization sent to China to investigate found that 78% of the cases reported as of Feb. 20 were in people ages 30 to 69.

Taken into context then, researchers found that the death toll veers sharply towards the older population. Of the confirmed cases, 2.3% of those individuals have died. The rates increase substantially to 14.8% in people 80 or older, suggesting the presence of other diseases, weakened immune systems, or compromised overall health. Conversely, the death rate was 1.3% in 50-somethings, 0.4% in 40-somethings, and 0.2% in people 10 to 39 year olds.

What does it all mean? Younger people tend to have stronger respiratory systems. Unsurprisingly, being healthy and strong can act as a backstop for overall wellbeing in circumstances such as viral outbreaks.

What can we do? Once this pandemic has passed, it would make sense that we all begin to take proactive actions that will boost our immune health against future outbreaks. This includes good cardiovascular fitness, avoiding cigarette and tobacco smoke, and any other habits that will weaken respiratory and immune system efficiencies.