COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group

How COVID-19 Kills

Bulletin 20 | Joseph Lu

This bulletin explains how COVID-19 kills.

Emerging evidence shows that COVID-19 can damage the lung, leading to low blood-oxygen levels and death. The joint-culprits are the virus and an over-reacting immune system. The virus infects primarily the lung and potentially other organs including the heart and kidney. Our own immune system may over-react, leading to cytokine storm that damages these organs. This damage, combined with oxygen deprivation, kills.

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Joseph Lu

Director of Longevity Science - Legal & General

Joseph Lu leads a multidisciplinary team of experts to research mortality and longevity risks of international populations. He works for Legal & General, one of the UK's leading annuity providers.

His work is relevant to insurance products such as annuities, life protection, lifetime mortgage and pension de-risking solutions such as Pensions Buyouts and Buy-ins as well as Longevity risk solutions.

He is active in research & development with the Actuarial Profession which includes being the co-author of 2 prize-winning papers ‘Longevity in the 21st Century’ and ‘Two Dimensional Mortality Data: Patterns and Projections’ presented to the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

He has been voted Life Actuary of the Year by the actuarial community through the Actuarial Post.

He has been working with the Longevity Science Panel, bringing together experts from various disciplines to understand the implication of scientific development on longevity.

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