Question: The new acceleration in COVID cases has me worried. Would you please remind me of the data about those who do not survive it? Average age, pre-existing conditions, etc?
Answer: The acceleration of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths across the country is deeply worrisome. You may feel a wee bit heartened to know that as the pandemic has progressed, patient outcomes have improved. In fact, case fatality rates (e.g. the proportion of deaths among cases) have dramatically declined. Nature had a great article on this trend just last week, “Why do COVID death rates seem to be falling?” Meanwhile, a couple of friends/colleagues, Dr. YJ Choi and Dr. David Bishai, and I dug into CDC’s case surveillance data to understand how national case fatality rates have changed over time by age and race. Just yesterday, we published our results on medRxiv (a preprint server for health sciences). Read on to learn more about our findings. In the meantime, know that case fatality increases with age, racial/ethnic minority status, and underlying conditions. If you’re curious to see the most recent (August) case fatality rates by age and race/ethnicity, check out Figure 2.
Selected findings from our paper, “Deaths among COVID Cases in the United States: Racial and Ethnic Disparities Persist“
- CFR has declined over time for all racial, ethnic and age groups (Figure 1);
- CFR disparities by race and ethnicity are narrowing;
- CFR disparities by race and ethnicity persist:
- Whites consistently experience lower case fatality.
- Blacks generally experience higher case fatality among younger patients.
- Asians generally experience higher case fatality among older patients.
- High case fatality among Asians has been imperceptible in commonly reported mortality rates.
Figure 1. Monthly age-specific case fatality rates across race/ethnicity groups, March-August
Figure 2. Most recent (August) case fatality rates by race and age
