The peculiarities of COVID-19 in older people: Considerations after two years

As written by Cicero in De finibus, Aristotle said, “Hominem ad duas res, ad intelligendum et ad agendum, esse natum” , i.e. “Man is born for two things: to understand and to act” . The path of the scientific and medical community dealing with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID- 19) pandemic reflects precisely this statement, although much remains to be understood and done. This is particularly true for SARS-CoV-2 infection in older people since the complexity of the disease and the related lack of knowledge overlapped with the complexity and vulnerability of this population, which was the most burdened category. In the first pandemic wave, for instance, more than 80% of COVID-19-related deaths occurred in people older than 70 year [1]. Therefore, the only way out of this scenario was to try to understand and plan new actions to improve the prevention and management of the disease.