Question

Explain why the newborn, geriatric and oncology population are more vulnerable and at higher risk in severe illness contracting COVID-19. Please find an article that demonstrates this and upload it.

Answer 1

The majority of those who are infected with COVID-19 have a self-limiting infection and do recover. However, we know that a minority go on to suffer more severe disease, with 10% of cases requiring intensive care unit admission. Sadly, some patients will pass away: so far 30,098 persons are reported to have died with COVID-19 in the European Region, with 90% of the deaths occurring in the mainly affected countries of Italy, Spain and France.

Older adults are at a significantly increased risk of severe disease following infection from COVID-19. This is a very important observation for the European Region: of the top 30 countries with the largest percentage of older people, all but one (Japan) are our Member States in Europe. The countries most affected by the pandemic are among them.

We know that over 95% of these deaths occurred in those older than 60 years. More than 50% of all deaths were people aged 80 years or older. We also know from reports that 8 out of 10 deaths are occurring in individuals with at least one underlying co-morbidity, in particular those with cardiovascular diseases/hypertension and diabetes, but also with a range of other chronic underlying conditions.

Some of the reasons older people are greatly impacted by COVID-19 include the physiological changes associated with ageing, decreased immune function and multimorbidity which expose older adults to be more susceptible to the infection itself and make them more likely to suffer severely from COVID-19 disease and more serious complications.

But age is not the only risk for severe disease. The very notion that “COVID-19 only affects older people” is factually wrong. As a colleague of mine recently said, “Young people are not invincible”. 10% to 15% of people under 50 have moderate to severe infection.  Severe cases of the disease have been seen in people in their teens or twenties, with many requiring intensive care and some unfortunately passing away.

On a positive note, there are reports of people over the age of 100 who were admitted to hospital for COVID-19 and have now since made a complete recovery. It is becoming clearer that the healthier you were before the pandemic plays a crucial role. People who age healthily are less at risk.

People with cancer, people who are in active cancer treatment, older patients, and people with other serious chronic medical conditions, such as lung disease, diabetes, or heart disease, are at higher risk for the more severe form of COVID-19 that could lead to death. Recent data have shown that people with active or progressing cancer may be at higher risk than those whose cancer is in remission. The same rules apply for people with cancer as for those without cancer