Study: 8.4 Million Moroccans at High Risk from COVID-19, Says Planning Commission

According to the High Commission for Planning (HCP), this is the population aged 65 and over (2.6 million, including 1.7 million suffering from at least one chronic disease) and the population under 65 suffering from at least one chronic disease (5.8 million).

The same source notes that this pandemic affects the population differently depending on age and the existence of a chronic disease; which leads to its distribution according to this double criterion. "With nearly 36 million inhabitants, the Moroccan population is relatively young, with an average age of 31.9 years and composed of 7.4% of individuals aged 65 and over," says the HCP, noting that the employed active population amounts to 10.7 million individuals.

"Conversely, and if we limit ourselves to the 15 to 64 age group, 18.6 million individuals do not have a chronic disease and are considered at lower risk," the study points out. Among the 10.5 million employed active people under 65, 7.9 million have no chronic disease, the report specifies.

The HCP also assures that the measures put in place since the recording of the first confirmed case of covid-19 in Morocco on March 2 have helped slow the spread of the disease. Without these measures, the spread would have been of a completely different magnitude to reach a possible collective immunity, but with devastating impacts, both on the number of infections and on the level of human losses, the report concludes.