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

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2004911117
• Publication Date: 2020-04-16T23:45:35Z
• Authors: Jennifer Beam Dowd; Liliana Andriano; David M. Brazel; Valentina Rotondi; Per Block; Xuejie Ding; Yan Liu; Melinda C. Mills
• Keywords: Pandemic; Case fatality rate; Age structure; Social distance

Governments around the world must rapidly mobilize and make difficult policy decisions to mitigate coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Because deaths have been concentrated at older ages, we highlight important role of demography, particularly, how age structure a population may help explain differences in fatality rates across countries transmission unfolds. We examine thus far Italy South Korea illustrate pandemic could unfold populations with similar sizes but different structures, showing dramatically higher burden mortality versus younger populations. This powerful interaction demography current age-specific for COVID-19 suggests that social distancing other policies slow should consider composition local national contexts as well intergenerational interactions. also call provide case data disaggregated by sex improve real-time targeted forecasting hospitalization critical care needs.