The latest data from China stem from an analysis of nearly 45,000 confirmed cases, and on the whole suggest that the people most likely to develop severe forms of COVID-19 are those with pre-existing illnesses and the elderly.
While less than 1 percent of people who were otherwise healthy died from the disease, the fatality rate for people with cardiovascular disease was 10.5 percent. That figure was 7.3 percent for diabetes patients and around 6 percent for those with chronic respiratory disease, hypertension, or cancer.
While overall, 2.3 percent of known cases proved fatal which many experts say is likely an overestimate of the mortality rate, given that many mild cases might go undiagnosed patients 80 years or older were most at risk, with 14.8 percent of them dying. Deaths occurred in every age group except in children under the age of nine, and, generally speaking, we see relatively few cases among children, World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last week.
