Covid risks are concentrated among Americans of Biden's age

President Biden is 79, and Americans his age and older have made up growing shares of those who have died from Covid in recent months. The virus has taken advantage of the decline in immunity caused by the time that has elapsed since the last vaccinations of many elderly people, and the Omicron variant has developed an increasing ability to circumvent the body's defenses.

Covid killed far fewer Americans of all ages this summer than it did during the peak of the Omicron winter surge. Yet older adults remain at significantly higher risk.

As of early June, four times as many Americans between the ages of 75 and 84 were dying of the virus each week from compared to two-year-olds. decades younger, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (These death counts are preliminary, the C.D.C. warned, because they were based on death certificates and did not account for all deaths in those age ranges.)

It's even bigger age gap than the one that existed at the top of the Omicron wave this winter. Then, the number of people aged 75 to 84 killed by Covid each week was twice as high as that of people aged 55 to 64.

The president received a second booster shot at the end of March, significantly reducing his risk of serious illness. This spring, people 50 and older who received a single booster were dying of Covid at four times the rate of those who received two booster doses, the C.D.C. reported.

Covid deaths in 2022, while still concentrated among the elderly, have become more elderly skewed than they have done at any time since vaccines have become widely available. Many elderly people were vaccinated at the beginning of 2021, and among those who have not yet received a booster, the immune defenses generated by the injections have considerably diminished.

In contrast, older Americans, who suffered a large share of pandemic deaths last summer and fall, have a greater reserve of immune protection against vaccination and previous infections.< /p>

While Covid deaths remain well below winter, they are increasing again in the elderly as the immunoevasive Omicron subvariant known as BA.5 name causes more infections, according to the latest C.D.C. The data. From early May to early June, the number of Americans aged 75-84 dying from Covid each week increased by almost 50%.