The pandemic threatens aged rural regions most

In the map NUTS-3 regions of Europe are colored according to the deviation from European pooled estimate of the proportion of population at risk of death due to COVID-19. We assume that 5/6 of the populations get infected and experience age-specific infection-fatality ratios (IFRs) modelled by the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team. We adjust IFRs by sex ratios of age-specific case-fatality ratios observed in Italy. Thus, we effectively introduce a summary measure of population age structures focused on the most vulnerable to the pandemic. Such an estimate for the total European population is 1%. Please note, this estimate is very rough and unlikely to hold true due to multiple biases of the data for the unfolding pandemic; in contrast, the population age structures data are of good quality. Thus, whatever the total infected population is and the absolute values of age-specific IFRs, the relative differences between regions would hold as long as the age-specific profile of IFRs stays proportional. This map reflects the unequal population age structures rather than the precise figures on COVID-19 fatality. It's a demographic perspective.