It is a good article and reminds us all that the "circle of life" carries on with or without coronavirus: this sentence is especially relevant.
"Every year more than 500,000 people die in England and Wales"
It's very likely that Covid-19 is giving a "nudge" to those figures, i.e. people who are close to death already are seeing that accelerate due to the virus.
The chart you quoted is good as well: it shows quite clearly that the vast, vast majority of cases will indeed involve a co-morbidity of some sorts. It may well be that people are borderline diabetic etc for example without realising it, or have mild high blood pressure but haven't had it checked. These are, I reckon, what's responsible for some of the "we're seeing 40-year-olds coming in" type events.
It's also worth mentioning that at 40 you are offered a thorough going-over by the NHS. It's not compulsory and I daresay many people ignore it, but I also suspect after this more people will take up the offier! If nothing else, it's good reassurance.
(I admit I didn't take it up myself, but that's because at 39, having gone to the doctor for the first time in 18 years, they gave me the full range of tests. Aside from being low on Vitamin D, everything came back clear... they took my blood pressure a total of 4 times, perhaps they thought it should be higher than it was.)
None of this incidentally precludes the cases where younger people suddenly fall very ill without previous known illnesses, but scientificially there will be *something* causing them to succumb. I'd imagine there's intense research going on to find out what these hidden factors are!
Originally Posted by: Retron