Younger people are not immune to Covid-19

We were told the virus is most dangerous for the old, but now the young are turning up in critical care. Why? The news is full of reports of young people taken down by Covid-19. On Sunday an 18-year-old was among a further 48 people who died in the UK. In the West Midlands, a 36-year-old nurse and mother of three is on a ventilator in a critical condition.

And yesterday, Dr Rosena Allinkhan, a London doctor and Labour MP, issued an urgent plea to the young to behave responsibly.

“Some of the sickest patients that we have had in this department recently have been young,” she told the BBC. “We have patients who are in their 30s and early 40s who are previously fit and well who are now in intensive care and fighting for their lives.”

It is a warning echoed by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organisation. “You are not invincible,” he told young people.

So what’s going on? We were initially told that it was mainly the old who were at risk. Is the course of the pandemic changing? It is highly unlikely the mortality profile of Covid-19 is shifting. It is perfectly possible for Covid-19 to be both a “disease of the old” and for very large numbers of young people to die. The good news for the young is that this is definitely not a rerun of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which hit the most productive age groups hardest.

A study of the first 44,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases in China found that deaths proliferated among older patients. While only 1.8 per cent of thirtysomethings died, this rose to almost 13 per cent among fiftysomethings and 30 per cent among 70- to 79-year-olds.

The other authority on this is Imperial College London, whose modelling informs the UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. It predicts that in Britain only 0.03 per cent of people under 30 who contract the virus will die, compared with an alarming 9.3 per cent of those over 80.

There is no reason to think the “shape” of these numbers are wrong. They may rise or fall proportionally depending on the success or otherwise of the UK lockdown, but they are likely to be in the right ballpark as far as age is concerned.

However, it is also true that young people are not immune and there will be many deaths. It’s important to note that very young children may be more vulnerable than first thought, according to a study published by the American Academy of Paediatrics.

The study, which looked at 2,143 patients under the age of 18 in China, found the rate of “severe and critical” illness in infants under one was 10.6 per cent. The study also revealed that a 14-year-old boy from Hubei province died from the virus.

Data from the first hospitalised cases in the US also suggest higher numbers of young people are being severely impacted than Imperial’s estimates predicted.

A study of the first 2,500 Americans to be hospitalised by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention found 20 per cent were between the ages of 20 and 44. The same age group accounted for 12 per cent of intensive care patients.

It is likely these ratios will fall into line with Imperial’s estimates as the epidemic progresses.