Sixty-five percent of those who died in Karnataka due to COVID-19 were aged above 60. And all other patients who lost their lives were aged above 40.
An analysis of the 40 COVID-19 deaths in Karnataka by the State war room reveals that 26 among them were aged above 60. Eleven (27.5%) were in the 50-59 age bracket and three in the 40-49 group.
Age-wise distribution
Among those infected, a majority in the State fall under the 20-29 age bracket. As many as 24.7% of the total 1,373 patients tested positive in the State belong to this category.
The war room has analysed data of patients who tested positive till Tuesday morning. The next largest chunk of patients (23.96%) who tested positive belong to the 30-39 age group. The least number of patients who tested positive belong to the 0 to 5 years age group. A total of 37 children in this age bracket (2.69%) tested positive.
Officials in the Department of Health and Family Welfare said that 10.48% of the positive cases are above 60 years old.
“We are keeping a close watch on these patients as this age bracket has the highest mortality rate. Most of the patients also had other co-morbidities making it difficult for them to beat the infection,” an official stated.
C. Nagaraja, Director of Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases (RGICD), said that it was a common trend across the globe that the infection rate among children below five years was the lowest. “This is because children below five years have good immunity. The mortality rate also is very low among young children,” he said.
Travellers
He also said that 48.72% of the total positive cases belonged to the 20-40 years group. “Most people who initially tested positive and had a history of international travel belonged to this age group. Most of the people in this age bracket are the ones who are involved in travel, inter-State or inter-district, and may have caught the infection during travel,” he said.
Dr. Nagaraja said that infection in this age category was not a matter of concern as most of them were asymptomatic and would quickly recover.
