To say older people at more at risk of dying from covid?

[waveafterwaveafterwave]

I had a bit of an argument with a friend this evening. I said that coronavirus is more dangerous for people over 70. They disagreed with me and said many 70 year olds are just as healthy as 20 year olds and age is just a number.

I argued that is not the case in the majority of cases, as age means we are more at risk of health issues. People over 70 do not have the health of a 20 year old. It's why the majority of heart attacks and strokes happen to older people - age unfortunately brings a higher chance of health problems. She just wouldn't have it, even when I sent her statistics and facts to back this up. She said she doesn't trust stats and it's discriminatory to say older people are more likely to be ill.

Maybe the lockdown is getting to me and making me overly annoyed, but I am frustrated with her arguing against something which is factual?

It's not discriminatory, it's true. It would be discriminatory if you therefore withheld treatment from 20 year olds who needed it, or 70 year olds who needed it.

But I wouldn't be having arguments about it with people now, tbh. No one's thinking clearly and unless your friend is the chief medical officer, it doesn't really matter what they think.

No. of deaths by Age Group in England till 5PM 25th April.
0-19 Yrs : 9
20 - 39 Yrs : 134
40 - 59 Yrs : 1480
60 - 79 Yrs : 7190,
80+ : 9607
Total : 18420 (ysday 18084) - Increase by 336
Note - Figures provided above only for England nation not for whole UK from hospitals only.

They need to do stats 101.

Your friends don’t understand discrimination.

It’s a fact that risk increases with age. Over 70s are more at risk.

And, of those who tragically died, around 90% had two or more underlying health issues - most commonly diabetes, obesity or heart conditions.

This is also very interesting showing ICU outcomes by age - albeit from the NL not UK.
This was taken from @BigChocFrenzy on the very interesting Daily statistical analysis threads.

Your friend is an idiot

Your friend doesn’t understand the word discrimination

The stats are pretty clear and hard to argue with. Far more elderly people have died than young people. It’s not about individual health, it’s about trends at a population level. There are very healthy 80 year olds and very unhealthy 20 year olds, nobody is claiming otherwise. But 80 year olds are far more likely to have underlying health issues than 20 year olds.

But then there’s no point arguing with people who claim to not trust statistics. I don’t mean people who have pointed out the flaws in methodology and reporting. Just people who refuse to believe any kind of stats on principle.