The numbers are right, but people didn't get them.
Distinguish between absolute numbers and the infection rate for each age group.
https://www.infoplease.com/us/comprehensive-census-data-state/demographic-statistics-342 gives the >45 as about 37%. Let's not get hung up on the details--35-40% is close enough.
That means any individual in the age group is less likely to get infected than somebody in the rest of the population. Pick any perfectly random group of 100 people and the chance that a perfectly random person picked from *that* group is infected and in that age range is less than 50%. (Yes, you need to be that detailed. The devil's not in the details, the details are all.)
But it's also true that the rate at which that age group gets infected is, as far as well can tell, the same as for every other group. In other words, if you have 100 people in that age group and compare it with 100 people from every other age group, it's the same percent.
How you look at the probability depends on the numbers you're looking at. That the age group is smaller reduces the odds of a random person being infected and in that group. So fewer infections in absolute numbers from that group. But it doesn't change the odds of any random person in that group being infected.
That's "who's infected." We are no less or more likely to get infected than anybody else, if life were random. If there *is* a skew, it's because of social facts. Health care workers aren't likely to be <22 years of age, for instance, but are at higher risk of becoming infected. If the bug gets lose in a network of nursing homes, most of those are >65 or ill. These are social networks and social facts layered on top of the brute-force viral infectiousness. So, yeah, there's a third way of slicing the stats.
This third way includes things like poverty--you're less likely to be able to practice social distancing if your job is cashier as opposed to doing stories for "This American Life" or processing insurance claims from a different state. But also geography--social distancing on a 3000 acre farm is a lot easier than on a NY metro bus.
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Layered on top of *that* are the simple health consequences. Some age groups are more likely to have health problems. I had fewer when I was 30 than I do now at 60. At 80 my parents had more than I have now.
Then there are just biological changes that come with age. Immune system doesn't work as well. Less resiliency. Loss of muscle mass. Let's not even get into the report speculating that part of the reason death by suffocation is the norm is that the virus infects the nervous system and makes it harder for the brain to tell the thorax, "Breathe in ... breathe out." (After all, SARS in animals infected very often through the olfactory nerves and caused central nervous system damage. And SARS-CoV-2 can affect smell, which uses the olfactory nerves ... speculation, but worth checking in on and it could explain part of the data.)
So we're a smaller cohort, fewer should be infected, but more will get sick and die.
"Fewer" and "more" are the key words. Many read "fewer" and see "none".
It *is* primarily an old person's concern. They make up most of the deaths. More so, the greater the percentage of elderly. And among people with bad math skills and who read in 3-second bites of 280 characters and firmly believe they've read an in-depth report and have a firm grasp of the facts, they get out of it that it's not their concern.
And, to be honest, while it *is* a concern, for the average 18-year-old death by COVID is probably (this is a guess, no numbers were crunched in the making of this claim) getting fairly close to the risk of dying in a car crash.
Notice, "Okay, boomer" is a sentence. It is not a question: "Okay, Boomer? You okay? Boomer?" It's more like, "I'm sick and dying." "Okay, boomer, but I'm busy. Leave the will out were I can find it, k?"
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