Contrary to the global trend where elderly are said to be the most vulnerable to Covid-19, in India it is the young people who are bearing the brunt of the deadly disease. At least 42 per cent of the total positive cases reported so far are in the age group of 21-40. People above 60 years accounted for only 17 per cent of the cases.
“We have done the age profile analysis of Covid-19 cases in India. We found that 9 per cent of positive cases are in between 0- 20 years, 42 per cent cases are in the age group of 21-40, 33 per cent in 41-60 and 17 per cent in the people above 60 years of age,” said
Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
However, in contrast, as situation prevails at present, most of the fatalities reported in India are from the higher age group.
Around 1.15 million people from across the world are infected with the virus which has claimed 60,428 lives since the first case of Covid-19 was reported in December last year from Wuhan in China. So far, 2,36,095 have recovered.
“As far as deaths are concerned, we have noticed that advanced age and co-morbidities such as diabetes, kidney and cardiac ailments played an important role in deaths,” said Agarwal.
“We are battling with this on a day-to-day basis. Still, the case doubling rate in India is lesser than others,” he added.
According to a paper published in Lancet Infectious Diseases, the Covid-19 kills an estimated 13.4 per cent of patients in the 80 plus age group , compared to 1.25 per cent of those in their 50s and 0.3 per cent of those in their 40s.
The sharpest divide came at age 70. Although 4 per cent of patients in their 60s died, more than twice that, or 8.6 per cent, of those in their 70s died, Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London and his colleagues estimated in the paper, based on the global data.
However, experts say that even if the young get infected, their survival rate is much higher in India, like in Italy and France where elders deaths were comparatively higher.
“As things stand, India has a very young population. Its median age is 28.4 years. The actual data runs somewhat like this: 44.7 per cent of the population is below 25 years of age and 41.24 per cent of the population is in the age group of 25-54 years. So altogether, more than 85 per cent of India’s population is below 54 years of age.
“Based on the data as analysed for France, Italy and Iran, India’s young are likely to act as a bulwark against the virus. It seems likely that this shall keep the death rates very, very, low indeed. India, with its young population coupled with the lockdown, shall come out of the crisis sooner and better than many European nations.
“This does not mean that the infection rates shall necessarily be low. We may get fairly high infection rates. I must also mention that there is no reliable data for infection rates at the global level. What seems clear is that the death rates for India shall be very low and to my mind that is the most important parameter that should be used to gauge the situation,” said Dinesh Singh, former Vice Chancellor, Delhi University and a mathematician.
