KHarblog: COVID deaths by age in Virginia

The extent to which COVID is almost exclusively a mortal threat to the elderly

deserves quantification, documentation, and attention.

As of 2020-05-18, there had been 1014 deaths attributed to COVID in Virginia, per

https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/coronavirus/

(for its bar chart showing the numbers,

click on the "Demographics" button,

then set "Select Measure" to "Deaths").

That total number makes it easy to turn absolute numbers into percentages.

The deaths were distributed as follows,

where the contents of each line are:

first the age range,

then the percentage of Virginia's TOTAL population in that age range,

then the percentage of COVID-caused DEATHS in that age range,

finally the actual number of deaths in that age range:

Age Pop. Deaths

80+ 4% 52% 532

70s 7% 24% 240

60s 11% 16% 157

50s 13% 5% 53

40s 13% 2% 22

30s 14% 0.7% 7

20s 14% 0.2% 2

<20 25%. 0.0% 0

Dividing the population more coarsely,

by half-centuries, yields a two-row table:

>50 97% 982 35%

<50 3% 31 66%

For comparison, the median age in Virginia is 38, i.e., for the general population,

>38 50%

<38 50%

Of that 3% of the deaths coming from those under 50,

it seems reasonable to ask:

How many of those people had comorbidities?

(Notes: The original bar chart showed that for one death, the age was "Not reported".

Thus the number of deaths here only add up to 1013.

The numbers for percentage of total Virginia population are from

https://censusreporter.org/profiles/04000US51-virginia/ )

For a look at the deleterious effects of the shutdown, see:

Doctors raise alarm about health effects of continued coronavirus shutdown: 'Mass casualty incident'

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doctors-raise-alarm-about-health-effects-of-continued-coronavirus-shutdown

KHarblog