The Impact of Age Structure of a Country in Case Fatality of Covid-19

Abstract

The SARS-CoV 2 pandemic, since its origin in China as a cluster of pneumonia cases, had reached almost every part of the world and had killed more than one million people worldwide [1]. The case fatality differs substantially between countries along with the number of symptomatic patients, sequelae of the disease and those who require intensive lifecare support. Such a perceived difference can be attributed to macroecological dissimilarities like the general well-being of the population and a more extent, its demographic structure. The demographic characteristics, most notably the age structure and population density, has important implications in the spread of infectious diseases [2,3]. Like most of the infectious diseases we have known so far, COVID-19 is seen more severely in groups like the elderly and those with comorbidities [4,5]. Robustness of the health system and abundance of resources might have helped the western countries to report proportionately a greater number of cases. However huge proportion of elderly population in these countries might have contributed to higher reporting of severe illness and deaths in these countries [6].