Coronavirus Mortality Estimates

For some morbid reason, we seem to be obsessed with coronavirus deaths.  That fascination has led us to our current dilemma.  But the spread of ages at death does tell us a fair amount the virus and the disease it causes.  In a new paper researchers examined deaths in Europe.   (Medrxiv Paper)   They used data from 32 countries and about 31,000 deaths.  Assuming that the deaths are accurately attributed to coronavirus, as of the date of the analysis, only .1% of the deaths occurred in people under 40 years of age.  People over 70 accounted for 85% of all deaths.  As the authors note, the strong difference in risk by age should be used by policymakers to determine the appropriate mitigation measures.