PORTLAND — COVID-19 deaths reported by the Oregon Health Authority over the weekend include a 37-year-old woman in Multnomah County. She tested positive Aug. 10 and died Aug. 15 at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center, and she had no known underlying medical conditions.

Due to patient privacy laws, hospital and government officials are not sharing more specific information about her. But public health officials say her death, like that of 34-year-old Vancouver, Washington, man Danh Tran, underscores how little we understand about the factors that put some healthy, younger people at risk for severe and even fatal infections.

“All COVID deaths are losses, of course, to friends and family. This one in particular gets our attention because it’s in someone so young, who you would not maybe have expected to succumb to the virus,” said Dr. Jennifer Vines, Multnomah County health officer. “I think the bottom line, and what I hear from my medical colleagues, is that this is essentially a roll of the dice across the lifespan, clearly in older groups but including in younger groups. Even regionally, we see about 1 in 20 people in their thirties with the virus are hospitalized.”

Age is by far the most significant risk factor for severe illness from COVID-19. In Oregon, about 75% of deaths from the virus are people who were 70 and over.

Vines said with any infection, it’s normal to see a spectrum of illness that can range from no sign of the disease to severe or even fatal symptoms.