Virologists are reportedly trying to unveil the mystery behind more and more elderly being affected fatally by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the fatality rate in the epicentre China, for ages over 80 is an alarming 14% (22% by some estimates) while for those in 10 to 39 range, it is merely 0.2% . They believe the cure to the virus would be discovered when the truth behind this disparity will prevail.
Crux of the Matter
Demographic Bio Battle Demography is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings. It includes the study of the size, structure, and distribution of the population, and spatial or temporal changes in it in response to birth, migration, aging, and death.
Ever since the COVID-19 outbreak, social media has been flooded with conspiracy theories that the virus may be a Chinese or American biological weapon, that tweaks the former’s demographic breakup. Adding further fuel to this conspiratorial fire is the revelation of a Nature article from 2015 that describes the engineering of a bat-based coronavirus. The study shows how a SARS virus was modified by using a bat-virus’ protein to create a supervirus capable of infecting humans. It has been speculated that COVID-19 may have been bat-borne. With the cases doubling in the past 25 days, the numbers are least flattering for the most traveled cities like Milan, Italy; Daegu, South Korea and Qom, Iran, that have the same latitude, with similar temperatures and relative humidity. As of now, there have been more than 130 thousand cases, around 5000 Deaths and 70000+ recoveries. China has the highest number of cases at more than 80 thousand while India so far has less than 80 cases.
What More do the Aged have to Suffer? In the elderly-friendly nation Italy, a March 4 analysis by the National Health Institute found that, amongst the 105 patients that died of the virus, the average age was 81. This, in turn, put a 20-year gap between the average age of people who tested positive and the deceased. The researchers at the Center for Disease Control, China have been busy investigating the reason behind COVID-19 mostly affecting older people, particularly those with heart, lung, and immunological conditions. It is being suspected that our immune function declines with age, which makes us more susceptible to severe illnesses. Age also decreases our ability to fight off such chronic diseases.
Demographic breakdown by Age for India and Italy, and Death Rate by Age for #COVID19. https://t.co/HHzqdl89kl pic.twitter.com/3kWRRVcdVd — Anand Ranganathan (@ARanganathan72) March 11, 2020
Sean Leng, a geriatrician and a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, says that “In older adults, the number of white blood cells that find and help eliminate infections can decline and become less adept at identifying new pathogens to fight, like in the case of Novel Coronavirus.”
Root Cause of COVID-19: Cytokine Storm Critically acclaimed institutes have conducted randomized trials which propose that the mortality rate is being caused by a cytokine storm syndrome. During this ‘storm’, an excessive immune response ravages healthy lung tissue, leading to acute respiratory distress and multi-organ failure and ultimately death. Patients in studies who developed this syndrome, possessed certain genetic immune defects that resulted in the uncontrolled immune response. While novel and repurposed anti-viral therapies are being explored to treat COVID-19, all patients sick enough for hospitalization can be given a cheap, quick, and readily available serum ferritin blood test as a screening tool. Recently, Interleukin-1 (IL-1), IL-6, IL-18, and interferon-gamma have come out as drugs being targeted for anti-cytokine approaches. IL-6 blockade has been the one with the most successful outcomes in some Chinese individuals receiving this as part of their hush-hush biological treatments.
Finding Patterns in Temperature Scientists at the University of Maryland are collecting data using weather modeling, in an attempt to make parallels between the coronavirus growth rate and climatic conditions. Influenza thrives in cold and dry conditions, which is why winter is flu season for much of the northern hemisphere.
Recent studies seem to suggest that the major hotspots for the Coronavirus outbreak lie in regions with average temperature around 10-15 degrees Celsius during winters. However the worrying side of this theory is that even with places like Singapore, Australia, and Brazil, where year-round hot weather exists, 187, 156 and 77 respective cases have come up in the first wave of the virus. Experts are hoping that the virus spread would reduce during even warmer climate and this would give health systems space to deal with the initial influx of patients. Also additional guidance can be issued for nursing homes and long-term care facilities to save the isolated elderly from the outbreak. Then in the meantime, a potential vaccine can be developed.
Trying to Find the Silver Lining in Numbers While the WHO has recently declared the Coronavirus outbreak as pandemic given its aggressive spread across the world, data seems to indicate that fatality rates are affected significantly by age and pre-existing conditions.
The study of more than 70 thousand cases in China last month also suggests that 5% of cases are critical, requiring intensive care. Further, the fatality rate of COVID-19 is around 2-3%, much higher than influenza but it pales in comparison to Coronavirus’ previous avatars SARS and MERS which had fatality rates of 10% and 34% respectively.
The countries that have seen the worst of this outbreak namely China, Italy, South Korea and Iran all have significantly higher percentage of older population as compared to India. A look at the population pyramid of India vis-a-vis China, coupled with the correlation between age and fatality rate may be a silver lining for Indians in this pandemic pandemonium.
Curiopedia
COVID-19 outbreak: In late December 2019, novel coronavirus (COVID-19) emerged from Wuhan, China, and resulted in a formidable outbreak in many cities in China and expanded globally in 114 countries. This viral pathogen’s previous incarnation was responsible for the 2012 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in Saudi Arabia and the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory (SARS) outbreak in China. The World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared this outbreak as a controllable pandemic on 11 March 2020. Common signs of this infection include respiratory symptoms, fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. In more severe cases, infection can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and even death. Currently, there is no definite treatment and certain drugs are under investigation for the same. More Info
Population Pyramid is a graphical illustration that shows the distribution of various age groups in a population, which forms the shape of a pyramid when the population is growing. Males are conventionally shown on the left and females on the right, and they may be measured by raw number or as a percentage of the total population. The y-axis contains age groups from young at the bottom and old at the top. A triangular shape indicates an overall young population, wheras a more rectangular or inverted triangle shape suggest that the average population demographic is older. More Info
This comparison shows that India in 2020 has a much younger average population than China, Europe, USA, Iran, Italy and S. Korea.
Curated Coverage
The Washington Post – Coronavirus is mysteriously sparing kids and killing the elderly
NBC News – Coronavirus is hard on older people — and scientists aren’t sure why
Livemint – COVID-19 infection cases cross 1 lakh mark globally, WHO concerned, masks sales scale up
Scientific American – Why Deaths from Coronavirus Are So High in Italy
Our World In Data – Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) – Research and Statistics
SSRN – Temperature and Latitude Analysis to Predict Potential Spread and Seasonality for COVID-19
Nature – Engineered bat virus stirs debate over risky research
Comments