@AmeshAA @michaelmina_lab @baldingsworld Looking at Italy's regional data hospitalizations rates (unsurprisingly) correlate with median age of positive cases. And median age seems to correlate with the ratio of tests/case (source: DPC@gov). /1

Out of the hard-hit regions, Veneto is an outlier on testing (126k+ tests out of 5m) and skews much younger than Lombardy, Italy's COVID-19 epicenter. Some of this may have to do with testing intensity. Veneto does as many tests as Lombardy with half the pop (& fewer +s)

Lombardy and Veneto have similar age structures, so that doesn't appear to be driving the results.

The age composition of cases in the US is spotty and inconsistently reported, but WA, where testing has been robust for a while, provides an interesting comparison. It skews much younger than Lombardy, and even Veneto (60% of cases below 60 yrs, vs. 54 in Veneto & 41 in Lombardy)

Sure, WA positive cases are still not representative of the overall pop, but they're much younger than Lombardy, the region of Italy with the most hospitalizations. And a cursory look at other age reports from other states suggests that might be true elsewhere as well.

So do you think we can draw some hope from this, assuming of course these kinds of age distributions don't progressively skew older? TY

For underlying data see:

https://public.tableau.com/profile/michele.zanini#!/vizhome/ITALYCovid-19TrendsbyRegion/Summary and https://public.tableau.com/profile/michele.zanini#!/vizhome/AgeDistributionWAvs_ITARegions/AgeDistribtionITAvs_WA