---
title: "The Coronavirus Outbreak is Most Dangerous for the Elderly"
description: "A breakdown of who is getting sick and dying from the coronavirus outbreak shows that elderly people and those who were already sick are getting hit harder."
date: "2020-01-28"
modified: "2020-01-28"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/coronavirus-outbreak-dangerous-elderly"
categories:
  - "Developments"
  - "Health & Medicine"
  - "Medical"
  - "Pathogens"
  - "Viruses"
tags:
  - "2019-ncov"
  - "disease"
---

# The Coronavirus Outbreak is Most Dangerous for the Elderly

![A breakdown of who is getting sick and dying from the coronavirus outbreak shows that elderly people and those who were already sick are getting hit harder.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/coronavirus-outbreak-dangerous-elderly.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: NIAID/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

As 2019-nCoV, the coronavirus that emerged in China last month, continues to spread to [over a dozen](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/timeline-china-viral-outbreak-spread-worldwide>) countries, it's becoming increasingly clear that the elderly and chronically ill are at a greater risk than the general population.

The coronavirus can cause symptoms [ranging in severity](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/symptoms-of-coronavirus>) from fever and fatigue to pneumonia and septic shock. But older people, and people who were already sick before contracting 2019-nCoV, seem to be getting hit harder, [according to *The New York Times*](<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/world/asia/coronavirus-victims-wuhan.html>).

Those groups are dying from the infection at a higher rate than the population at large. In other words, the [outbreak's death toll](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/coronavirus-death-toll-graph>) doesn't tell the whole story.

"The majority of fatal cases are elderly and/or have a chronic disease that would increase their susceptibility to infectious diseases," Columbia University epidemiologist W. Ian Lipkin told the *NYT*.

But that doesn't mean that otherwise healthy people can rest easy in the face of the growing viral outbreak.

"I've experienced a lot, and I've never felt scared, most of these are controllable," Lipkin, who also studied SARS and Bird flu, told the *NYT*. "But this time I'm scared."

In many outbreaks, it's the elderly and the very young who are particularly vulnerable.

But that trend doesn't seem to hold up with 2019-nCoV, [according to *Foreign Policy*](<https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/26/2019-ncov-china-epidemic-pandemic-the-wuhan-coronavirus-a-tentative-clinical-profile/>). Instead, there are fewer confirmed cases and outbreak-related deaths in children than expected — though that could be in part due to the difficulty inherent to confirming that someone is sick with the coronavirus rather than something like the flu.

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)