YOUNG ADULTS ALSO FALLING ILL, ACCORDING TO DATA.
We don’t want them gathering, Trump says
The deadly coronavirus has been met with a bit of a shrug among some in the under-50 set in the United States. Even as public health officials repeatedly urged social distancing, the young and hip spilled out of bars on Bourbon Street. They gleefully hopped on flights, tweeting about the rock bottom airfares. And they gathered in packs on beaches.
Their attitudes were based in part on early data from China, which suggested COVID-19 might seriously sicken or kill the elderly — but spare the young.
Stark new data from the U.S. and Europe suggests otherwise.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis of U.S. cases from Feb. 12 to March 16 that was released Wednesday shows that 38 per cent of those sick enough to be hospitalized were younger than 55 years.
Earlier this week, French health ministry official Jérôme Salomon said half the 300 to 400 coronavirus patients treated in ICUS in Paris were younger than 65 years and, according to numbers presented at a seminar of intensive care specialists, half the ICU patients in the Netherlands were under the age of 50.
At a White House news conference on Wednesday, Deborah Birx, the response co-ordinator of the nation’s coronavirus task force, warned about the concerning reports from France — and Italy, too — about “young people getting seriously ill and very seriously ill in the ICUS.”
She called out younger generations and warned of “disproportional number of infections among that group.”
U.S. President Donald Trump himself reinforced her warning, “We don’t want them gathering, and I see they do gather, including on beaches and in restaurants, young people. They don’t realize, and they’re feeling invincible.”
The CDC report looked at a total of 4,226 COVID-19 cases, with much of the data coming from the outbreaks among older adults in assisted living. As in China, the highest percentage of severe outcomes were among the elderly. About 80 per cent of people who died were 65 years and older.
However, the percentage with more moderate or severe disease requiring hospitalization is more evenly distributed between the old and young, with 53 per cent of those in ICUS and 45 per cent of those hospitalized 65 years and older.
“These preliminary data also demonstrate that severe illness leading to hospitalization, including ICU admission and death, can occur in adults of any age with COVID-19,” researchers wrote.
There was more encouraging news about children in the U.S. Those 19 years and younger who were tested appear to have milder illness with almost no hospitalizations. A much larger sample of children in China, as detailed in the journal Pediatrics this week, found that most had mild to moderate illness.
The CDC report did not specify if the younger patients had underlying conditions that might make them vulnerable, but Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases, commented on CNN on
Wednesday that some did.
Public health experts say it’s difficult to compare coronavirus numbers by age across countries at this stage due to the limited numbers tested and that differences may be due to the environment, lifestyle, demographics or something about the virus itself.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s $1.45 trillion rescue plan proposed on Wednesday, forms the basis for fast-moving negotiations on Capitol Hill, and includes sending two large cheques to many Americans and devoting $435 billion toward helping small businesses avoid mass layoffs.
The White House is vetting these proposals with Senate GOP leaders before engaging more fully with Democrats, so the package is certain to evolve in coming days. Democrats, meanwhile, are eyeing their own priorities, largely aiming to shore up safety net programs and the public health infrastructure, as well as send money directly to American taxpayers, while shunning corporate bailouts.
“People want to go big,” Trump said at a news conference when asked about the size of the direct payments to Americans. “Everybody seems to want to go big and they want to get to the recovery.”
As the U.S. government scrambles and escalate its response, Trump ordered Navy hospital ships to states on the coasts. Carnival Corp. is making its cruise ships available for possible virus response efforts, Trump said Thursday, citing talks with the company’s chairman, Micky Arison. Trump mentioned the vessels while talking about hospital ships, but the exact use wasn’t clear.
The global impact of the virus continues to skyrocket. In Italy, a total 427 deaths were registered over the past 24 hours, bringing the total nationwide tally to 3,405 since the outbreak surfaced on Feb. 21. China has recorded 3,245 deaths since early January. More than 10,000 people across the U.S. have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and more than 160 have died, with the largest numbers so far in Washington state and New York.
UNITED STATES