Among Italy, Spain, and Japan, the age distributions of COVID-19 mortality show only small variation even though the number of deaths per country shows large variation. To understand the determinant for this situation, we constructed a mathematical model describing the transmission dynamics and natural history of COVID-19 and analyzed the dataset of mortality in Italy, Spain, and Japan. We estimated the parameter which describes the age-dependency of susceptibility by fitting the model to reported data, including the effect of change in contact patterns during the epidemics of COVID-19, and the fraction of symptomatic infections. Our study revealed that if the mortality rate or the fraction of symptomatic infections among all COVID-19 cases does not depend on age, then unrealistically different age-dependencies of susceptibilities against COVID-19 infections between Italy, Japan, and Spain are required to explain the similar age distribution of mortality but different basic reproduction numbers ( R 0 ). Variation of susceptibility by age itself cannot explain the robust age distribution in mortality by COVID-19 infections in those three countries, however it does suggest that the age-dependencies of (i) the mortality rate and (ii) the fraction of symptomatic infections among all COVID-19 cases determine the age distribution of mortality by COVID-19.
【저자키워드】 viral infection, Epidemiology, 【초록키워드】 COVID-19, Mortality, susceptibility, Variation, Epidemics, Italy, COVID-19 infection, Transmission dynamics, Spain, death, Japan, basic reproduction number, age, dataset, mortality rate, distribution, symptomatic infection, COVID-19 mortality, Contact, COVID-19 case, fraction, symptomatic infections, parameter, country, robust, analyzed, reported, required, determine, explain, mathematical, 【제목키워드】 COVID-19, Mortality, susceptibility, novel coronavirus disease, age, distribution,