COVID-19 mortality risk for older men and women

Case-fatality from COVID-19 has been reported to be relatively high in patients age 65 years or older. We sought to determine the age-specific rates of COVID-19 mortality at the population level.

We obtained information regarding the total number of COVID-19 reported deaths for six consecutive weeks beginning at the 50th recorded death, among 16 countries that reported a relatively high number of COVID-19 cases as of April 12, 2020. We performed an ecological study to model COVID-19 mortality rates per week by age group (54 years or younger, 55-64 years, and 65 years or older) and sex using a Poisson mixed effects regression model.