Official Data Confirms that Men, the Elderly Most Likely to Die from Coronavirus
Almost one in ten deaths in March involved Covid-19. The number is an average across the entire month – including the early days before the outbreak took hold – and is expected to be higher in April as the virus spread rapidly.
The figures come from an in-depth ONS study of all deaths in March registered up to April 6 where Covid-19 was involved.
It found more than nine in ten people who died due to a Covid-19 infection had a pre-existing health condition. The average number of pre-existing conditions was 2.7 – meaning many of the people who died had at least three.
Some 14 per cent of those who died had ischaemic heart disease – making it the most common pre-existing complaint, followed by pneumonia, dementia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Men had a significantly higher rate of death due to Covid-19 – almost double that of women. The data also confirmed that the elderly were disproportionately likely to die, with death rates increasing rapidly from the ages of 55-59 for men and 65-69 for women. Children seem to be virtually unaffected by the disease, with no deaths of people under 15 recorded in March.
