Source:
https://scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3075864/younger-adults-less-immune-covid-19-health-risks-thought-us
China/ People & Culture

Younger adults less immune to Covid-19 health risks than thought, US agency’s study suggests

  • A top American health official and US President Donald Trump urged the country’s young adults to heed social distancing guidelines
  • Data from Centres for Disease Control and Prevention showed that a fifth of 705 people aged 20-44 were hospitalised, with 2-4 per cent requiring intensive care
Clearwater Beach, Florida on March 18, 2020. In the US, President Donald Trump urged the country’s young adults to heed social distancing guidelines and avoid ‘gathering on beaches’. Photo: AP

Younger people may not be as invulnerable to the effects of Covid-19 as previously thought, according to data released on Monday by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, as a top American health official and US President Donald Trump urged the country’s millennials to heed social distancing guidelines.

The CDC’s study of 4,226 coronavirus infections recorded in the US from February 12 to Monday showed that about a fifth of 705 people aged 20-44 were hospitalised, with 2-4 per cent requiring intensive care.

Still, the US data matched findings from China – the early epicentre of the global pandemic – showing that the risk of severe complications and death arising from a Covid-19 infection rose with age. Those aged over 65 and with pre-existing conditions were the most vulnerable group, according to the CDC study. Thirty-one per cent of all infections recorded in the study occurred in people over 65.

While epidemiologists have emphasised that all age groups face risks, much of the public and media attention from various studies focus on the higher fatality and transmission rates among those over 65 years of age.

This age group accounted for 45 per cent of hospitalisations, 53 per cent of intensive care unit admissions and 80 per cent of deaths recorded during the period of the data. Nine people aged 20-64 died of the disease, with no fatalities recorded among infected people aged 19 and below.

“Clinicians who care for adults should be aware that Covid-19 can result in severe disease among persons of all ages,” the CDC said in its report. The federal health agency said its data was preliminary and incomplete for some “key characteristics of interest, including hospitalisation status”.

Students lie on the beach during spring break at Miramar Beach, Florida, on March 16. Speaking about the coronavirus, Ellis Turner said, ‘I feel safer here than at school,’ noting they live in a residential hall there, where everybody is touching the same stuff. Photo: AP
Students lie on the beach during spring break at Miramar Beach, Florida, on March 16. Speaking about the coronavirus, Ellis Turner said, ‘I feel safer here than at school,’ noting they live in a residential hall there, where everybody is touching the same stuff. Photo: AP

The data release came as Dr Deborah Birx, the No 2 official in the White House Covid-19 task force, told a press conference on Wednesday that data from France and Italy also showed that younger people were “getting seriously ill and very seriously ill in the ICU”.

“We think part of this may be that people heeded the early data coming out of China and coming out of South Korea of the elderly or those with pre-existing medical conditions [being regarded as] a particular risk,” said Birx, in the briefing that was attended by Trump, Vice-President Mike Pence and other senior officials in the task force.

Media reports in the US have shown younger people – in university campuses and elsewhere – not heeding the stringent social distancing measures the CDC has recommended to flatten the epidemic curve in the country amid the surge in community transmission.

The CDC has advised against social gatherings of more than 10 people. Every state in the mainland US now has recorded infections.

“We are not only calling on you to heed what’s in the guidance, but to really ensure that each and every one of you are protecting each other,” Birx said. Trump, meanwhile, said he hoped young people would “just listen to what we’ve been saying over the last period of time”.

“We don’t want them gathering, and I see that they do gather, including on beaches and including in restaurants, young people,” he said.

“They don’t realise that – they’re feeling invincible, I don't know if you felt invincible when you were young. But they don’t realise that they could be carrying lots of bad things home to their grandmother and grandfather and even their parents,” he said. “I do believe it's getting through.”

In a briefing earlier on Wednesday, Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organisation’s technical lead for Covid-19, said that the mild symptoms experienced by the overall majority of children was not universal.

A study of more than 2,000 children infected with the virus in China, published online in the Journal Pediatrics this week, said while most infected children only develop mild or moderate symptoms, there is chance of toddlers and babies developing severe ones.

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