Abstract
As of May 5, 2020, the number of confirmed coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases has been more than 3.5 million with 243,540 deaths. We aimed to determine the associations between ageing population, median age, life expectancy at birth and COVID-19 mortality. The numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the European region were obtained from the World Health Organization database. The data on percentage of the population aged 65 and over, median age and life expectancy at birth were extracted from the World Factbook of Central Intelligence Agency. A total of 56 countries/areas in the Europe reported COVID-19 cases and deaths (1,121,853 cases and 100,938 deaths) on April 20, 2020. The results showed significant positive associations between COVID-19 mortality and ageing population (r =0.274; P =0.021), median age (r =0.255; P=0.029), male median age (r =0.284; P =0.017), female median age (r =0.224; P=0.049), life expectancy at birth (r =0.336; P=0.006), male life expectancy at birth (r =0.342; P=0.005), female life expectancy at birth (r =0.312; P=0.01) in the 56 European countries/areas. This study illustrated that COVID-19 mortality was positively associated with ageing population, median age, and life expectancy at birth.
Highlights
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak was characterized as a global pandemic on March 11, 2020 [1]
The results showed significant positive associations between COVID-19 mortality and ageing population (r =0.274; P =0.021), median age (r =0.255; P=0.029), male median age (r =0.284; P =0.017), female median age (r =0.224; P=0.049), life expectancy at birth (r =0.336; P=0.006), male life expectancy at birth (r =0.342; P=0.005), female life expectancy at birth (r =0.312; P=0.01) in the 56 European countries/areas
The highest case fatality rate of COVID-19 came from France, at 17.43%
Summary
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak was characterized as a global pandemic on March 11, 2020 [1]. The case fatality rates in France, the United Kingdom and Italy reached as high as 15.08% (28,734 deaths and 190,588 confirmed cases), 13.54%. As reported in previous studies [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10], age was an important factor for the case fatality rate of COVID-19 patients. In the United States [7], COVID-19 patients aged ≥85 years (10% to 27%) had the highest case fatality rate, followed by aged 65-84 years (3% to 11%) and aged 20-54 years ( 70 years) was significantly associated with the higher risk of death from COVID-19 (relative risk 10.67)
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