Tag: age groups

Which Groups Are Still Dying of Covid in the U.S.?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/10/us/covid-death-patterns.html

Graphics:

image

Excerpt:

“Previously, at the start of the pandemic, we were seeing people who were over the age of 60, who have numerous comorbidities,” said Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious disease expert at the Medical University of South Carolina. “I’m not seeing that as much anymore.” Instead, she said, hospitalizations have lately been skewing toward “people who are younger, people who have not been vaccinated.”

More than 80 percent of those 65 and older have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, compared with about half of those aged 25 to 64 who have received one dose. Data collected by the C.D.C. on so-called breakthrough infections — those that happen to vaccinated people — suggest an exceedingly low rate of death among people who had received a Covid-19 vaccine.

Author(s): Denise Lu

Publication Date: 10 June 2021

Publication Site: New York Times

Mortality From Falls Among US Adults Aged 75 Years or Older, 2000-2016

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2735063

Reference: JAMA. 2019;321(21):2131-2133. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.4185

Graphic:

Excerpt:

In the United States, an estimated 28.7% of adults aged 65 years or older fell in 2014.1 Falls result in increased morbidity, mortality, and health care costs.1,2 Risk factors for falls include age, medication use, poor balance, and chronic conditions (ie, depression, diabetes).1 Fall prevention strategies are typically recommended for adults older than 65 years. In several European countries, an increase in mortality from falls has been observed since 2000, particularly among adults older than 75 years.3,4 This age group has the highest fall risk and potential for cost-effective interventions. We report trends in mortality from falls for the US population aged 75 years or older from 2000 to 2016.

Author(s): Klaas A. Hartholt, MD, PhD1; Robin Lee, PhD, MPH2; Elizabeth R. Burns, MPH2; et al

Publication Date: 4 June 2019

Publication Site: JAMA

U.S. Population Mortality Observations Preview of 2020 Experience

Mary Pat Campbell

Report Link: https://www.soa.org/globalassets/assets/files/resources/research-report/2021/us-population-observations-preview.pdf

Link: https://www.soa.org/resources/research-reports/2021/us-population-observations-preview/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The overall age-adjusted mortality rate for 2020 was 828.7 deaths per 100,000 of population. This rate was 15.9% greater than the 2019 overall age-adjusted mortality rate. This high level of mortality has not been experienced in the U.S. since 2003.

If deaths coded as COVID (COVID deaths)3 were excluded, the overall age-adjusted 2020 mortality rate would have been 737.2 per 100,000 or 3.1% higher than the 2019 rate. This increase excluding COVID deaths is also noteworthy because it reverses the two previous calendar years of decreasing mortality; however, some or all of this may be due to the misclassification of CODs as discussed in Section 6.

2020 mortality rates increased in both sexes, with the male rates increasing more than the female rates. The differences in the increases between males and females were about 3% when all causes of death (CODs) are included and about 1% when COVID deaths are excluded.

The slope of the 2020 COVID mortality curve by age group is not as steep as the slope of the non-COVID deaths, indicating that COVID impacts younger ages more evenly across age groups that all other non-COVID CODs combined.

In the review of the 2020 mortality rates by age group, it is interesting to see that the highest percentage increases were in the younger adult ages, not at the very old ages. When COVID deaths were removed, ages 15-44 saw the largest increases in mortality rates.

Author(s): Cynthia MacDonald, FSA, MAAA

Publication Date: 20 May 2021

Publication Site: Society of Actuaries

Death rates at specific life stages mold the sex gap in life expectancy

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/20/e2010588118

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Female life expectancy exceeds male life expectancy. Males at ages 15 to 40 die at rates that are often three times female levels, but this excess mortality is not the main cause of the life expectancy gap. Few deaths occur at younger adult ages compared with mortality after age 60 or, historically, among newborns. Our demographic analysis shows that, up through the early decades of the 20th century, the life expectancy gap largely resulted from excess deaths of infant boys. Afterward, higher mortality among men 60+ became crucial. The higher mortality of males at ages 15 to 40 has played a modest role.

Author(s): Virginia Zarulli, Ilya Kashnitsky, James W. Vaupel

Supplementary online material: https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2021/05/06/2010588118.DCSupplemental/pnas.2010588118.sapp.pdf

Github: https://github.com/CPop-SDU/sex-gap-e0-pnas

Publication Date: 18 May 2021

Publication Site: PNAS

Despite Its Much Stricter COVID-19 Policies, California’s Per Capita Death Rate Is Only Slightly Lower Than Florida’s

Mary Pat Campbell
Despite Its Much Stricter COVID-19 Policies, California’s Per Capita Death Rate Is Only Slightly Lower Than Florida’s

Excerpt:

According to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the infection fatality rate for Americans who are 70 or older is something like 5.4 percent, compared to 0.5 percent for 50-to-69-year-olds, 0.02 percent for 20-to-49-year-olds, and 0.003 percent for people younger than 20. In other words, the risk for the oldest age group is 11 times the risk for the next oldest, 270 times the risk for 20-to-49-year-olds, and 1,800 times the risk for the youngest cohort.

Yet Los Angeles Times reporters Soumya Karlamanga and Rong-Gong Lin II, citing University of Florida epidemiologist Cindy Prins, write that “Florida’s older population might have, perhaps counterintuitively, prevented the virus from spreading as quickly as it did in California.” How so? “Young adults who socialize and mingle, either at work or in social settings, tend to spread the virus the most while older people are more cautious and stay home.”

Florida, of course, is a mecca for college students on spring break, whose socializing and mingling provided ammunition for critics of DeSantis’ alleged recklessness. And despite the relative timidity of elderly Americans, they account for more than four-fifths of COVID-19 deaths in the United States. Nursing homes alone account for more than a quarter of the total death toll.

Author(s): Jacob Sullum

Publication Date: 10 March 2021

Publication Site: Reason

Why an epidemiologist thinks Connecticut has its COVID vaccine priorities backwards

Mary Pat Campbell
Why an epidemiologist thinks Connecticut has its COVID vaccine priorities backwards

Excerpt:

But the state has its terms for success defined backward, said Saad Omer, Yale School of Public Health epidemiologist and the director of the Yale Institute for Global Health. “That’s a process metric,” he said. “It’s not an outcome metric.”

How important is speed in the COVID-19 vaccine rollout? To Connecticut, it’s an important enough consideration to partially justify bucking CDC guidance on prioritizing people with co-morbidities, though experts suggest that it is the best way to prevent deaths in younger populations.

But by rolling out vaccine through an age-based process, the state will effectively de-prioritize younger adults with co-morbidities that put them at higher risk of dying from COVID-19, Omer said, because in those younger age groups, those with existing health issues will be part of a much larger crowd of eligible residents.

Author(s): Kasturi Pananjady

Publication Date: 9 March 2021

Publication Site: CT Mirror

Characteristics of minimum wage workers, 2020

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2020/home.htm

Excerpt:

Age. Minimum wage workers tend to be young. Although workers under age 25 represented just under one-fifth of hourly paid workers, they made up 48 percent of those paid the federal minimum wage or less. Among employed teenagers (ages 16 to 19) paid by the hour, about 5 percent earned the minimum wage or less, compared with 1 percent of workers age 25 and older. (See tables 1 and 7.)

Publication Date: February 2021

Publication Site: Bureau of Labor Statistics

‘Encouraging’ signs for Covid vaccine as over-80s deaths fall in England

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/16/encouraging-signs-covid-vaccine-over-80s-deaths-fall-england

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Deaths from coronavirus have fallen by 62% among over-80s since 24 January, the point at which a third of that age group had some level of immunity against coronavirus, having received their first vaccine dose at least two weeks earlier, data analysis by the Guardian showed.

This drop was larger than among groups with a lower level of vaccination. Among people aged between 20 and 64 the drop in deaths was 47%, while the drop among those aged 65 to 79 was 51%.

Author(s): Anna Leach, Ashley Kirk, and Pamela Duncan

Publication Date: 16 February 2021

Publication Site: The Guardian

Grocery store workers ‘disgusted’ with Lamont’s new COVID-19 vaccine policy

Mary Pat Campbell
Grocery store workers ‘disgusted’ with Lamont’s new COVID-19 vaccine policy

Excerpt:

Lamont abandoned the state’s previous methodology for a vaccination rollout, which had prioritized people with underlying medical conditions and certain types of workers in essential, high-risk jobs.

But the governor’s announcement Monday — which ironically was made the same day the national Food Industry Association celebrated “Supermarket Employee Day” — shifted to a priority system that is strictly age-based, with one exception: school employees and child care providers. The next round of shots will open March 1 to people who are between ages 55 and 64, teachers and others who work in schools, and day care workers.

Besides grocery story workers, the administration also had been considering giving priority in this next phase to transportation workers, as well as people 16 and older who have underlying health conditions like heart disease and diabetes, and teachers and other school staff. Only the last group is being given priority in Lamont’s new plan.

Author(s): Keith Phaneuf

Publication Date: 23 February 2021

Publication Site: CT Mirror

Pfizer’s Covid-19 Vaccine Is Equally Effective for Young and Old, Israeli Study Finds

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/israeli-study-finds-pfizer-shot-equally-effective-for-young-and-old-11614204008

Excerpt:

The Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE is equally effective across all age groups, including those over 60, according to a new Israeli study, in a boost of confidence to global vaccine efforts.

The Pfizer vaccine provided around 94% protection against developing coronavirus symptoms across all age groups above 16 a week after the second shot of a recommended two-dose regimen, according to a study by researchers from Israel’s Clalit Research Institute and Harvard University. The study also found the vaccine is 92% effective in preventing severe disease.

The results are in line with the vaccine maker’s own clinical trial, but the large size of the study, which covered nearly 1.2 million people, provides more precise insight into older age groups that were sparsely covered by the drugmaker’s trial, according to the study’s authors.

Author(s): Dov Lieber

Publication Date: 24 February 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

The smallest population increase in 15 years

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/statistik-efter-amne/befolkning/befolkningens-sammansattning/befolkningsstatistik/pong/statistiknyhet/befolkningsstatistik-helaret-2020/

Graphic:

[kvinnor = women, man = men]

Excerpt: [via Google Translate]

Last year, it was especially in older ages that the number of deaths was more than in the immediately preceding years. The increasing number of deaths also affected men to a greater extent than women. The excess mortality rate last year was greatest among men older than 75 years, in the age group 75–84 years 20.6 per cent died more than during the comparison period. Among younger women 0-34 years, there was no excess mortality, -8.9 percent fewer died compared with the comparison period. For women, just like men, the differences were greatest in the oldest age groups; in the group aged 75–84, 14.7 per cent more deaths were noted than the average over the past five years.

It is not easy to put the number of dead in a longer historical context. Not least because the demographic composition and population of the country has changed. The development of the number of deaths over time is affected partly by the medical development and partly by the development of various diseases and lifestyles. The number of deaths during different periods is also affected by how many are at the ages when most people die.

Publication Date: 22 February 2021

Publication Site: Statistics Sweden

COVID-19: New Study Reveals Danger To Younger Americans, Who Are Dying At Historic Rate

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://dailyvoice.com/new-york/northsalem/news/covid-19-new-study-reveals-danger-to-younger-americans-who-are-dying-at-historic-rate/799940/

Excerpt:

Contrary to popular belief, COVID-19 is taking its toll on younger Americans, who are dying at a historic rate, according to a new study.

Research published this week in the Journal of American Medical Association found that Americans between the ages of 25 and 44 have died at a rate that has never been seen in history.

During the study, a total of 76,088 deaths were reported in adults between those ages, which was 11,899 more than the expected 64,189 fatalities during that stretch.

Author(s): Zak Failla

Publication Date: 19 December 2020

Publication Site: Daily Voice