Based on data from the United States, the people most at risk of severe outcomes due to COVID-19 are aged 85 and over, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicated in an official communication on March 18, 2020.
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As the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise in the U.S., the CDC have been keeping track of which groups face the greatest risk of exposure to the virus and which are most likely to experience severe symptoms of the resulting illness.
In a new official report, the federal agency now indicate that U.S. data largely confirm earlier findings in other countries. The data suggest that people who are older, or who have underlying health conditions, or both, are more likely to experience severe outcomes of COVID-19.
Previous findings suggested that adults over 60 are most likely to have severe symptoms.
The CDC report largely confirms this, while specifying that in the affected U.S. population, adults aged 85 and over have the highest risk of negative outcomes resulting from the illness.
The CDC COVID-19 response team who put together the current report looked at data from people in the U.S. with confirmed COVID-19 between February 12 and March 16.
The total number of cases officially recorded at that point was 4,226, and many of those affected lived in long-term care facilities for older adults.
The data came from people in 49 U.S. states, as well as the District of Columbia and three U.S. territories.
In assessing the data, the researchers took into account the severity of the disease, which they inferred from hospitalizations, admissions to intensive care units (ICUs), and reports of death. They went on to classify their findings by age gr