The very young, never before exposed to a similar virus
The elderly with various pre-existing conditions and generally declining health and immune system despite past exposure to similar viruses.
CV-19 has proven to be little threat to the young and young-to-middle-aged adults in good health despite it being a novel virus. It is only the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions PLUS no acquired immunity which suffer high mortality rates.
This seems to indicate that once the population has been vaccinated and/or exposed to similar agents that CV-19 will likely be less dangerous than many flus. Conversely, until they have acquired some immunity, those who reach old age or acquire certain conditions will continue to have elevated risk.
An important characteristic of COVID-19 is that most people who die or spend time in critical condition from it are primarily suffering symptoms resulting from an overly aggressive immune response, including "cytokine storms". This probably explains two phenomena: first, the widely noted lack of serious cases in children, and second, the growing list of patients over 100 years old who have survived a symptomatic infection. At this point, I've lost count of how many news stories I've seen about the "amazing" survival of someone over 100 years old. And I suspect there are a whole lot more of these cases among the 90+ crowd.
Most likely, the same thing is underlying these two phenomena: Young children don't have fully developed immune systems, and so will tend to mount a weaker and slower response to the virus. Very elderly people's immune systems have weakened significantly, and thus they also mount a weaker response to the virus. When the virus in question kills largely by triggering a dangerously aggressive immune response, having a weak immune system is a benefit.
I suspect if researchers took a comprehensive look at people in the 15-75 age range whose immune systems are being pharmacologically suppressed due to some other medical condition (e.g. organ transplant), they'd find a pattern of unexpectedly good outcomes, especially in cases where the immune suppressing drugs were not discontinued. Something similar appears to have been observed in a European study, which showed very few cases among people taking hydroxychloroquine for the autoimmune disorders lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
The flu is generally hardest on two groups:
The very young, never before exposed to a similar virus
The elderly with various pre-existing conditions and generally declining health and immune system despite past exposure to similar viruses.
CV-19 has proven to be little threat to the young and young-to-middle-aged adults in good health despite it being a novel virus. It is only the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions PLUS no acquired immunity which suffer high mortality rates.
This seems to indicate that once the population has been vaccinated and/or exposed to similar agents that CV-19 will likely be less dangerous than many flus. Conversely, until they have acquired some immunity, those who reach old age or acquire certain conditions will continue to have elevated risk.
An important characteristic of COVID-19 is that most people who die or spend time in critical condition from it are primarily suffering symptoms resulting from an overly aggressive immune response, including "cytokine storms". This probably explains two phenomena: first, the widely noted lack of serious cases in children, and second, the growing list of patients over 100 years old who have survived a symptomatic infection. At this point, I've lost count of how many news stories I've seen about the "amazing" survival of someone over 100 years old. And I suspect there are a whole lot more of these cases among the 90+ crowd.
Most likely, the same thing is underlying these two phenomena: Young children don't have fully developed immune systems, and so will tend to mount a weaker and slower response to the virus. Very elderly people's immune systems have weakened significantly, and thus they also mount a weaker response to the virus. When the virus in question kills largely by triggering a dangerously aggressive immune response, having a weak immune system is a benefit.
I suspect if researchers took a comprehensive look at people in the 15-75 age range whose immune systems are being pharmacologically suppressed due to some other medical condition (e.g. organ transplant), they'd find a pattern of unexpectedly good outcomes, especially in cases where the immune suppressing drugs were not discontinued. Something similar appears to have been observed in a European study, which showed very few cases among people taking hydroxychloroquine for the autoimmune disorders lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
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