COVID-19 death rate increased with age, was higher for men

COVID-19 mortality increased with age, reaching 1,645 per 100,000 population for U.S. adults aged 85 years and older in 2020, according to an October data brief published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics.

Betzaida Tejada-Vera and Ellen A. Kramarow, Ph.D., from the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland, describe COVID-19 mortality in 2020 among adults aged 65 years and older using data from the National Vital Statistics System.

The researchers found that the death rate for COVID-19 was 2.8-fold and sevenfold higher for adults aged 85 years and older compared with those aged 75 to 84 and 65 to 74 years, respectively (1,645 versus 589.8 and 234.3 per 100,000 population, respectively). For all race and Hispanic-origin groups, age-adjusted death rates for COVID-19 were higher for men than women in adults aged 65 years and older. In 2020, there was variation observed at the state level in the age-adjusted death rates due to COVID-19 in the population aged 65 years and older from 90.5 to 872 in Hawaii and New Jersey, respectively. Overall, 38.9 percent of COVID-19 deaths among adults aged 85 years and older occurred in a nursing home or long-term care facility, compared with 19.2 and 9.7 percent among those aged 75 to 84 and 65 to 74 years, respectively.

"Overall, the number of deaths among adults aged 65 and over for which COVID-19 was the underlying cause of death was 282,836, comprising 81 percent of total COVID-19 deaths in the United States in 2020," the authors write.

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