PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - All borders to reopen.
View Single Post
Old 14th Sep 2020, 03:01
  #1611 (permalink)  
slats11
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: sydney
Age: 60
Posts: 496
Likes: 0
Received 2 Likes on 2 Posts
So median age of person who died from (? with) COVID in Australia = 82 (very similar to USA white decedents)

USA has stratified median age of death by ethnic background
81 (IQR 71-88) for white decedents
72 (IQR 62-81) for non-white, non-Hispanic decedents
71 ( IQR 59-81) for Hispanic decedents

Australian median life expectancy = 83 years (so Australian's who die from COVID are very slightly older than Australian's who die from all other causes).
Average life expectancy of an 85 year old is 6 years - so you have a 75% chance of living another 3 years, a 50% chance of living another 6, and a 25% chance of living another 10.
Put another way, the for a person aged 85, the average annual risk of death is 10% (12% male and 9% female). Yes the dataset and hence numbers are slightly different, but you get the general idea.

For comparison, the average mortality for some aged 85 getting COVID is estimated to be about 10% (this figure is a bit rubbery). So about the same risk again as you already had by virtue of being 85. However the risk of dying from COVID is expressed over a couple of weeks, while the annual risk of dying is expressed over 52 weeks.

So getting COVID aged 85
Likely doubles your risk of dying in the next 12 months (from 10 to 20%)
With most of this increase expressed over the first few weeks

COVID is not a nothing. And I don't believe anyone has suggested otherwise.

But at 85, life (i.e. being 85) is risky. An elderly relative once told me "I don't buy green bananas."

And maybe we have got this out of proportion.

slats11 is offline