COVID‐19 is an emergent disease of aging

COVID‐19 is an ongoing pandemic caused by the SARS‐CoV‐2 coronavirus that poses one of the greatest challenges to public health in recent years. SARS‐CoV‐2 is known to preferentially target older subjects and those with pre‐existing conditions, but the reason for this age dependence is unclear. Here, we found that the case fatality rate for COVID‐19 grows exponentially with age in all countries tested, with the doubling time approaching that of all‐cause human mortality. In addition, men and those with multiple age‐related diseases are characterized by increased mortality. Moreover, similar mortality patterns were found for all‐cause pneumonia. We further report that the gene expression of ACE2, the SARS‐CoV‐2 receptor, grows in the lung with age, except for subjects on a ventilator. Together, our findings establish COVID‐19 as an emergent disease of aging, and age and age‐related diseases as its major risk factors. In turn, this suggests that COVID‐19, and deadly respiratory diseases in general, may be targeted, in addition to antiviral approaches, by approaches that target the aging process. This study establishes COVID‐19 as an emergent disease of aging, based on (a) an exponential growth of the COVID‐19 mortality rate with age, (b) the COVID‐19 mortality rate doubling time approaching that of all‐cause human mortality, (c) higher mortality in men than in women, (d) strong association with pre‐existing age‐related diseases, and (e) COVID‐19 being a subset of all‐cause pneumonia, which we find itself is a disease of aging.