Health experts said on Friday that US President Donald Trump's gender, age, and weight make him more vulnerable to develop severe COVID-19, giving him a notional risk of around 4% of dying from it.
Currently, Trump is experiencing mild symptoms but will keep working after testing positive for the coronavirus, administration officials said on Friday
A working paper by the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research published in July put an infected but otherwise healthy 70- to 79-year-old`s risk of dying from COVID-19 at 4.6%, regardless of gender.
David Spiegelhalter, a professor of risk and an expert in statistics at Britain`s Cambridge University, cited a COVID-19 survival calculator that put the mortality rate for an otherwise healthy 74-year-old white man with COVID-19 during the peak of the pandemic in Britain earlier this year at 3% to 4%.
That risk would now "presumably be somewhat less", he said, as doctors have gained experience in treating the disease.
Michael Head, a global health professor at Britain`s Southampton University, said that "the president`s profile would classify him as vulnerable."
Information provided by a White House physician in June puts the 74-year-old president in the obese category, which triples his risk of needing hospital treatment, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released in August.
David Strain, also at the University of Exeter medical school, said that assuming Trump contracted the virus recently, he is likely to have few symptoms over the next four to five days.
"The classic respiratory symptoms would occur midway through next week," Strain said.
"His physicians will be aware of the risk that a crash, similar to that ... Prime Minister (Boris Johnson) experienced at around day 10, may occur," Strain said.
"Should this occur at his age, he would need to be hospitalised and we would be concerned for his survival."
Even for otherwise healthy 65- to 74-year-olds infected with coronavirus, the mortality risk is 90 times higher than for those aged 18-29, according to the CDC data.
US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump have tested positive for COVID-19 tests after one of Trump's senior advisers tested positive for the infection.
Trump on Thursday had said that he and first lady Melania Trump have undergone COVID-19 tests after one of his senior advisers tested positive for the infection, and added that they will begin their quarantine process.
Earlier, it was reported that Hope Hicks, a top adviser to President Trump, tested positive for the coronavirus and is experiencing symptoms.
"Hope Hicks, who has been working so hard without even taking a small break, has just tested positive for Covid 19. Terrible! The First Lady and I are waiting for our test results. In the meantime, we will begin our quarantine process!," Trump tweeted.
The White House said in a statement that Trump "takes the health and safety of himself and everyone who works in support of him and the American people very seriously" and that it followed guidelines for limiting COVID-19 exposure to the greatest extent possible.
Hicks returned to the White House earlier this year after a stint in the private sector. She served previously as White House communications director and as a spokeswoman for Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
Hicks travels regularly with the president on Air Force One and, along with other senior aides, accompanied him to Ohio for the presidential debate on Tuesday and to Minnesota for a campaign event on Wednesday.
(With reuters inputs)
