Nearly 9 in 10 COVID-19 deaths in 2022 occur in people 65 and older, The Washington Post reported Nov. 28.
Although the pandemic has been declared over, more than 300 people are still dying every day from the virus and most of them are 65 or older, according to the report. The data has many experts wondering what can really be considered "acceptable loss."
"There's a bit of ageism, so to speak, attached to it," S. Matthew Liao, a professor of bioethics, philosophy and public health at New York University, told The Post. "People, even if they are older, they still have as much claim to live as me."
Here are three more things to know:
- 94 percent of all U.S. citizens were estimated to have been infected with COVID-19 at least once by Nov. 9.
- Protection against omicron rose from 22 percent to 63 percent nationally between December 2021 and November 2022.
- Increasing first booster uptake from 34 percent to 55 percent, and second booster uptake from 11 percent to 22 percent, would increase protection against infection by 4.5 percent and protection against severe disease by 1.1 percent, a study found.