PLoS ONE (Jan 2020)

Is older age associated with COVID-19 mortality in the absence of other risk factors? General population cohort study of 470,034 participants.

  • Frederick K Ho,
  • Fanny Petermann-Rocha,
  • Stuart R Gray,
  • Bhautesh D Jani,
  • S Vittal Katikireddi,
  • Claire L Niedzwiedz,
  • Hamish Foster,
  • Claire E Hastie,
  • Daniel F Mackay,
  • Jason M R Gill,
  • Catherine O'Donnell,
  • Paul Welsh,
  • Frances Mair,
  • Naveed Sattar,
  • Carlos A Celis-Morales,
  • Jill P Pell

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241824
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 11
p. e0241824

Abstract

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IntroductionOlder people have been reported to be at higher risk of COVID-19 mortality. This study explored the factors mediating this association and whether older age was associated with increased mortality risk in the absence of other risk factors.MethodsIn UK Biobank, a population cohort study, baseline data were linked to COVID-19 deaths. Poisson regression was used to study the association between current age and COVID-19 mortality.ResultsAmong eligible participants, 438 (0.09%) died of COVID-19. Current age was associated exponentially with COVID-19 mortality. Overall, participants aged ≥75 years were at 13-fold (95% CI 9.13-17.85) mortality risk compared with those ConclusionsHigher COVID-19 mortality among older adults was partially explained by other risk factors. 'Healthy' older adults were at much lower risk. Nonetheless, older age was an independent risk factor for COVID-19 mortality.