A 21-year-old woman who was reported as having died from coronavirus may not have had it after all.
The death of 21-year-old Chloe Middleton was given widespread media coverage earlier this week when she was reported to be the youngest British victim of Covid-19 with no known underlying health issues.
But it has since emerged that Miss Middleton may not have had coronavirus and that she may in fact have died of a heart attack.
There is still some confusion over the exact cause of her death.
According to a report published in the Guardian the hospital which treated her did not record her as a victim of coronavirus, despite a coroner subsequently connecting her death to the disease.
Middleton was taken to Wexham Park hospital in Slough last weekend after she had a heart attack. Attempts to resuscitate her failed and she was pronounced dead soon after arriving… A Berkshire coroner said the death was related to Covid-19 after being told Middleton had a cough, the source said. But this surprised medics at the hospital, who have not recorded it as a coronavirus incident.’
An NHS source tells the Guardian that ‘the coroner’s move “raised eyebrows” at the hospital because [Middleton] had not tested positive for the disease’.
But the Guardian has since taken down its original article “pending review”.
Statistics show younger people without underlying health issues are highly unlikely to die from coronavirus, which predominantly causes death among the elderly, those with pre-existing health conditions, and the obese.
Nicholas Christakis, Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale, has said that the fatality rate among patients (both symptomatic and asymptomatic) in their twenties is a 0.091 per cent, while for those in their eighties it is 18 percent.
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