98.8% of coronavirus fatalities had other diseases: KCDC
A coronavirus patient in her 90s is treated at Gachon University Gil Medical Center in Incheon. Courtesy of the hospital
By Park Si-soo
The coronavirus pandemic has killed 247 people in South Korea (as of April 30) and 98.8 percent of them (244) had at least one underlying disease before infection, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said on Thursday.
Circulatory diseases such as cardiac infarction and cardiac insufficiency took the biggest portion of 76.9 percent (190 people). Endocrine and metabolic diseases were next with 49.4 percent (122), followed by mental disease (44.1 percent or 109).
The average age of those who died was 77.3 ― with 86.2 percent aged 65 or older.
By age, those over 80 accounted for 118 of the dead (47.8 percent), 74 were in their 70s (30 percent), 35 in their 60s (14.2 percent), 15 in their 50s (6 percent), three in their 40s (1.2 percent) and two in their 30s (0.8 percent).
The KCDC has confirmed how 72.5 percent of them were infected with coronavirus ― 132 (53.4 percent) at hospitals or crowded public facilities, 26 (10.5 percent) at Shinchonji-related facilities or by the cult's followers and 21 (8.5 percent) through contact with people who had contracted the virus.
An investigation of the remaining 27.5 percent is under way.
Daegu had the most fatalities (172 or 69.6 percent), followed by North Gyeongsang Province (52 or 21.1 percent), Gyeonggi Province (15 or 6.1 percent), Busan (3), Seoul (2), Gangwon Province (2) and Ulsan (1).