The 5% of the Population at High Risk for Severe COVID-19 Infection Is Identifiable and Needs to Be Taken Into Account When Reopening the Economy

The goal of this column is to help mental health care professionals understand coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) so that they can better explain the complexities of the current crisis to their patients. The bottom-line of this column is that, while COVID-19 can infect virtually everyone in the human population, only about 5% are susceptible to severe infection requiring admission to an intensive care unit and/or causing a fatal outcome and this population can be identified on the basis of comorbid medical illness and/or age. These numbers are based on experience in China, the United States, and Europe. Table 1 presents an analysis conducted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is further supported by several other sources reviewed in the article. The population at risk for severe infection are individuals with comorbid medical illness and those 85 years of age and older. The comorbid medical illnesses identified as risk factors are preexisting respiratory and cardiovascular disease, immunocompromised status, morbid obesity (ie, body mass index ≥40), diabetes mellitus, and possibly significant kidney or liver impairment. Parenthetically, news reports and the literature sometimes cite age 60 years and older as a risk factor but age between 60 and 85 years is likely a surrogate for having 1 or more of these comorbid medical conditions. While 5% may initially seem like a small number, it nevertheless potentially represents 16.5 million people, giv...
Source: Journal of Psychiatric Practice - Category: Psychiatry Tags: Columns Source Type: research