Demographic science aids in understanding the spread and fatality rates of COVID-19

Governments around the world must rapidly mobilize and make difficult policy decisions to mitigate the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Because deaths have been concentrated at older ages, we highlight the important role of demography, particularly, how the age structure of a population...

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Published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 117; no. 18; pp. 9696 - 9698
Main Authors Dowd, Jennifer Beam, Andriano, Liliana, Brazel, David M., Rotondi, Valentina, Block, Per, Ding, Xuejie, Liu, Yan, Mills, Melinda C.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States National Academy of Sciences 05.05.2020
SeriesFrom the Cover
Subjects
Adult
Age
Age composition
Age Factors
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Betacoronavirus
BRIEF REPORT
Coronavirus Infections - epidemiology
Coronavirus Infections - mortality
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Demography
Disease control
Disease transmission
Fatalities
Humans
Italy
Middle Aged
Mortality
Pandemics
Pneumonia, Viral - epidemiology
Pneumonia, Viral - mortality
Populations
Republic of Korea
SARS-CoV-2
Sex Factors
Social Sciences
Viral diseases
Italy
Republic of Korea
COVID-19
mortality
demography
age structure
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Summary:Governments around the world must rapidly mobilize and make difficult policy decisions to mitigate the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Because deaths have been concentrated at older ages, we highlight the important role of demography, particularly, how the age structure of a population may help explain differences in fatality rates across countries and how transmission unfolds. We examine the role of age structure in deaths thus far in Italy and South Korea and illustrate how the pandemic could unfold in populations with similar population sizes but different age structures, showing a dramatically higher burden of mortality in countries with older versus younger populations. This powerful interaction of demography and current age-specific mortality for COVID-19 suggests that social distancing and other policies to slow transmission should consider the age composition of local and national contexts as well as intergenerational interactions. We also call for countries to provide case and fatality data disaggregated by age and sex to improve real-time targeted forecasting of hospitalization and critical care needs.
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Author contributions: J.B.D. and M.C.M. designed research; P.B., X.D., Y.L., and M.C.M. performed research; L.A., D.M.B., and V.R. analyzed data; and J.B.D., V.R., and M.C.M. wrote the paper.
Edited by Douglas S. Massey, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved April 8, 2020 (received for review March 17, 2020)
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.2004911117