Covid is becoming a disease of the elderly with nine in ten deaths in the US now among people aged 65 and over, according to official data. Although older people have been more vulnerable to Covid throughout the pandemic, fatalities are being further skewed towards the 65s and over, reaching a record 92 per cent of all Covid deaths a fortnight ago.
The Washington Post says that researchers are not clear on what is behind this trend, although uptake of the bivalent vaccine has been low with just a quarter of elderly people being vaccinated. About 100 Americans are dying from Covid every day, well below the peak of nearly 4,000 deaths a day two years ago, but some experts are warning that the next variant could mutate to become deadlier.
In 2020, a group of scientists called for a targeted approach that would see the elderly placed in lockdown but the young able to go about their lives. At the time, that idea was heavily criticised by mainstream scientists including Dr Anthony Fauci and former NIH director Dr Francis Collins.
