Health factors figure in COVID-19 deaths
There is no “average victim” of COVID-19 in Wisconsin; each person has a unique story.
But if there were such a theoretical fatality, it would be a man, about 75 years old. He would almost certainly have an underlying health illness like diabetes or high blood pressure.
There is a good chance he lived in a nursing home or assisted living facility.
If he were among the small number under 50 to die from COVID, he was likely obese.
And if he lived in Milwaukee, he would more likely be black, and probably white if he lived elsewhere in Wisconsin.
As the state passes 400 coronavirus deaths, a picture is emerging from state data and a spreadsheet created by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to track all deaths in Wisconsin.
The strongest theme in the data: Nearly every COVID-19 victim had at least one serious underlying health condition, sometimes several, according to the Journal Sentinel analysis of death data, largely from Milwaukee County. The four people in the data with no conditions were 64 and older.
The conditions found in Wisconsin deaths, which numbered 400 on Sunday evening, match risk factors for complications and death from COVID-19 reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
These conditions are important to help understand who is most vulnerable to the disease and how to take protective measures, according to Dr. Patrick Remington, an epidemiologist at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison.
But Remington cautioned against “othering” people, thinking that COVID-19 is a problem affecting someone else.
“Remember, most Americans have comorbidities,” said Remington, a former CDC epidemiologist and now the director of the Preventive Medicine Residency Program at Madison. “I wouldn’t want anyone to think this is another person’s disease.”