Public health experts have cautioned against reading too much into figures that show concentrations of cases in Ireland of Covid-19 in people of working age.
Data released this week by the Department of Health on the first 271 cases of the virus shows that two-thirds of cases are in patients younger than 55 years of age, with almost one in four cases in patients aged 35-44.
However, due to the relatively small sample size, experts said specific factors could be influencing the prevalence of the virus in those age cohorts. International data shows that older people are more likely to fall seriously ill with the virus.
Prof Sam McConkey, an infectious diseases expert at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), pointed to the significant proportion of Irish Covid-19 patients who had picked up the virus while travelling. These patients account for some 42 per cent of the Irish cases analysed. Prof McConkey said that "87-year-olds aren't travelling to Spain, Italy or Cheltenham.
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“The primary section of our population who travel and fly around tend to be young, healthy, wealthy people,” he said, “not the 70s or over-80s.”
Healthcare workers
Prof Mary Horgan, president of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland and former dean of the UCC medical school, also pointed out that a significant number of Irish cases were healthcare workers, a group who are at risk of higher exposure and de facto are of working age. As a result, the presence of even a small number of healthcare workers in as small a sample size as 271 patients would skew the age profile.
“The numbers are small so it is hard to interpret,” she said. “I’d caution about what you can interpret from what we’re seeing here, but what’s really important is we’re collecting data,” she added.
Data released by the Italian government shows the vast majority of deaths from Covid-19 occur in those aged 70 and above. As of March 17th, 1,757 of the deaths in Italy were in this age group. Almost all of the deceased had a pre-existing condition, and almost 50 per cent had three or more.
The median number of days between symptoms emerging and death was eight, and four days between hospitalisation and death. Some 76.1 per cent of the Italian sample had hypertension, 20 per cent had cancer, 7 per cent had dementia and 33 per cent had serious cardiac illnesses.
