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Elderly, cardiovascular patients most vulnerable: Coronavirus study

February 18, 2020

The largest study published so far on the persons most likely to be infected by the coronavirus revealed that the most vulnerable cases likely to get the virus are the elderly and cardiovascular patients, followed by medical care workers.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention in China has published the study on Tuesday, which included more than 70 cases associated with the virus Covid-19, including confirmed cases, and other suspected with and without symptoms.

The Chinese Health Committee statistics revealed that there were 72,236 virus infections and 1,868 death cases across China, as of Monday, after China recorded 98 deaths and 1,886 new infections on Monday alone.

The results of the study confirmed that the death rate of the virus was 2.3%, most of whom are elderly, followed by those with previous health conditions.

The death rate for those over 80 years of age was 14.8%, which decreased between the ages of 70-79 to 8%, and for ages 60-69 to 3.6%. Whereas it was 0.2% among the 10-39 years old, and it rose slightly to 0.4% among the 40-49 age group.

While the analysis of the study data showed that 0.9% deaths were recorded among patients who did not previously suffer from health conditions, it was 6.3% for those with chronic respiratory diseases, followed by 7.3% for diabetes patients, and it rose to 10.5% among patients with cardiovascular disease.

The study showed that most of the cases, 80.9%, suffered from mild symptoms, while severe symptoms appeared on 13.8% of the cases, and 4.7% suffered from critical symptoms.

The results concluded that workers in the medical profession face a greater risk than others, as 14.6% of the 1,688 medical paramedics were affected, and their cases were described as severe and critical, and the death rate among them was 0.3%.

In turn, the Chinese epidemiologist (Zhong Nanshan) predicted that the outbreak of the virus would reach its peak in the end of February, and likely to become stable by the end of April. — SG


February 18, 2020
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