Winter has already ended, and the spread of the coronavirus is only gaining momentum. Because of Covid-19, Russians were even called on to rest in Dagestan, and not in Italy, which came out on top in terms of deaths from coronavirus.
The number of deaths from coronavirus in this country as of March 11, 2020 reached 366 people (or 4.96% of 7.3 thousand cases). On March 8 alone, 133 people died.
And if we take the proportion of infected from the total number of the country's inhabitants, then South Korea is in the lead. It has 142.1 confirmed cases of coronavirus infection for every million citizens.
This is what the top 10 countries look like with the largest number of people infected with coronavirus so far.
- China.
- Italy.
- Iran.
- South Korea.
- France.
- Spain.
- Germany.
- USA.
- Japan.
- Netherlands.
However, the virus is very selective. It does not touch some, while in others it causes the development of a serious or even fatal illness. We have previously covered in detail facts about the appearance, symptoms and treatment of coronavirus... And in this article, we will take a closer look at the main risk groups during the coronavirus outbreak.
Elderly people are vulnerable to Covid-19
The vast majority of cases of coronavirus in China - namely 87% - were recorded in people between the ages of 30 and 79. According to experts from the Chinese Center for Disease Control, this situation may be related to lifestyle, because adults are in constant contact with other people.
Teens and people over the age of 20 also interact with others in school, work and on public transport, but they are rarely diagnosed with Covid-19.
- Of all Chinese citizens who fell ill, only 8.1% were people in their 20s.
- 1.2% were teenagers
- and in 0.9% of cases, people aged 9 years or younger were infected with the coronavirus.
Who can face death from coronavirus
If we take the death toll from the coronavirus, then the bias towards the elderly becomes even stronger.
As of February 2020, 2.3% of all deaths were confirmed in China.
- But the high 14.8% mortality rate among people 80 and older likely reflects the presence of other diseases, weaker immunity, or simply poor overall health.
- The mortality rate among 50-year-old patients was 1.3%.
- In 40-year-old patients, it is even lower - 0.4%.
- And there is a very low chance of dying from coronavirus in people aged 10 to 39 years. It is 0.2%.
Why do young people rarely get coronavirus?
Young people, unlike older people, hardly get sick with coronavirus. According to WHO, the incidence rate in people under 18 years old is only 2.4% of all reported cases.
Even cases of Covid-19 in children and adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 are rare. As of early February 2020, there were 549 cases of infection in this age group, or 1.2% of the total number of cases in China. Only one of the patients died.
One intriguing explanation for youth's apparent resistance to Covid-19: In areas near China's Hubei province, young children are often exposed to other coronaviruses. This could give them partial immunity to Covid-19. However, this does not explain why young people in other parts of the world are rarely affected by the coronavirus.
Pregnancy and coronavirus
In early February, Chinese state media reported that a woman infected with the virus gave birth to a child who subsequently tested positive for Covid-19. Scientists have suggested that newborns can become infected with coronavirus from the mother's body, through the placenta.
- Only one small study has examined this "vertical transmission". Scientists from Wuhan University found that of nine pregnant patients infected with Covid-19 (all had a caesarean section), no one transmitted the virus to their children. The health of all newborns was normal, the Apgar scores were high.
- As for the impact of the coronavirus on the health of the expectant mother, Covid-19 does not seem to be too severe in pregnant women. At least, this conclusion was made by scientists based on the small number of participants in the study.
- This is surprising because pregnancy suppresses the immune system (so that it doesn't attack the fetus). Therefore, pregnant women are usually more susceptible to respiratory pathogens than non-pregnant women. However, none of the nine women in the study developed severe Covid-19 pneumonia.
- Maybe immunosuppression in pregnant women is actually beneficial for coronavirus. There is a version that some of the most serious symptoms of this disease are the result of an overly active immune response. This condition is called hypercytokinemia - cytokine molecules activate immune cells at the site of inflammation, and the latter release a new portion of cytokines. This uncontrollable vicious circle can be fatal.
Coronavirus prefers men, especially chronically ill
The effect of gender on Covid-19 susceptibility has not been as studied as the effect of age, but preliminary data suggest that men may be more exposed to the virus.
Researchers from the WHO found that in 51% of cases (of the total number of cases), men are sick with coronavirus. These findings echo a study of 1,099 patients in Wuhan conducted in late January. It turned out that 58% of patients are men.
It is possible that this imbalance reflects the fact that affected men often traveled and / or interacted with a large number of people.
But the difference in mortality rates is quite real: 1.7% of women and 2.8% of men, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The difference between men and women in mortality may be related to how healthy the patient was before he contracted the coronavirus.
- People who have already suffered from one or another chronic disease have a more severe coronavirus. These are the findings from a large study conducted in China.
- Scientists analyzed the impact of the underlying disease on 1,590 coronavirus patients. At the same time, the patient's age and bad habits were taken into account.
- The researchers found that 399 patients with at least one additional medical condition (including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hepatitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or cancer) had a 79% increase in the chance of receiving intensive care or using an oxygen mask.
- Comorbidities also increase the risk of death from Covid-19. The mortality rate for patients who reported no other medical conditions was 0.9%. But in patients with cardiovascular diseases, it reached 10.5%, in diabetics - 7.3%, and in people with chronic respiratory diseases such as COPD - 6.3%.The risk of dying from coronavirus increased by 6.0% in patients with hypertension, and 5.6% in patients with cancer.
Brief conclusions
The "favorite audience" for the coronavirus is people from 30 to 79 years old. In a special risk group are people over 60 years old.
Small children, adolescents, as well as young people under 20 years old rarely get sick.
Men are more likely to be diagnosed with coronavirus than women, and men are more likely to die from this infection.
The chance of death and serious complications from coronavirus increases if the patient is already suffering from a chronic disease such as diabetes, hypertension, cancer, etc.
Pregnant women can transmit the disease to their babies through the placenta (however, more research is needed on this topic). Moreover, in pregnant women, the coronavirus does not necessarily cause serious complications.
