Covid-19 in young ‘will hit tipping point’
CORONAVIRUS may be spreading most widely in young people at the moment but it will hit a “tipping point” when it spreads into older people and causes a second wave, a leading hospital consultant has warned.
David Hepburn, a consultant in the intensive care unit at the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport, spoke out as figures showed the extent to which Covid-19 is circulating among young people.
In recent days, Public Health Wales has repeatedly blamed lack of social distancing among young people for mini clusters of coronavirus in Cardiff, Merthyr Tydfil and more recently in “lower Rhondda”.
A local outbreak in Caerphilly has been linked to people of all ages.
The public health body is anxiously waiting to see if what it is calling mini clusters will start to affect wider transmission rates.
Data identified by the teenage statistician sensation Lloyd Warburton shows the virus is now predominantly spreading among young people.
The figures, which he has taken from Public Health Wales’ daily releases, show the average age of people with confirmed cases has fallen from 54 for the period before August to 39 during August.
His statistics show this is driven by the 20-29 age group emerging as the group most likely to be diagnosed with Covid.
The percentage of people testing positive is also much higher
among the young. Nearly a third of all those tested in August aged between 10 and 19 came back positive compared to just 2 per cent of those over 60.
Despite the rise in cases, this has not translated into an increase in hospital admissions or deaths from the virus, with just one death reported by PHW in the past week.
According to PHW data, there are no patients being treated in Wales for coronavirus in critical care wards and only 31 patients are currently being treated in hospital for the virus in Wales as a whole.
Dr Hepburn, an intensive care consultant at the Royal Gwent Hospital, in Newport, who was at the epicentre of the pandemic in May, said he feared this would not continue if the virus spreads back into older groups.
Dr Hepburn said: “What we can see nationally is that increased cases haven’t yet translated into hospital admissions. I think the ‘second wave’ will start with widespread infection in the under-40s. We’ll reach a tipping-point at some stage where it jumps back into the older population and we see another rise in deaths and hospital/critical care admissions.
“The behaviour in the under-40s and over-40s has been quite different in terms of lockdown. The big question is, when does it cross age groups or indeed will it? It will be interesting to watch the infection rate over the next few weeks.
“If it’s rising exponentially then we can be pretty certain the over-40s will get hit at some stage.”
An entire flight was forced into self-isolation this week after a group of youngsters arrived back in Cardiff, having been on holiday on the Greek island of Zante and testing positive for the virus on their return.
Over the Bank Holiday weekend 3,000 ravers, mainly youngsters, descended on Banwen in Neath Port Talbot in an illegal gathering that lasted over three days.
According to a spokeswoman for PHW, nearly all the local outbreaks are among young people under the age of 40, and in most cases people are failing to report their whereabouts, hampering the tracking and tracing programme.
Anecdotal evidence has even suggested people are going out after receiving a positive test result for the virus, they said.
Growing increasingly frustrated, Dr Robin Howe, one of the incident directors for PHW, reiterated the need for young adults to share their data.
Dr Howe said: “Infection is being transmitted between friendship groups, households and social settings. Test Trace Protect teams are working with those affected and contacting those people who have been in contact with a person who has tested positive.
“A significant proportion of the positive cases are from the young adult age group and disappointingly, some have been reluctant to share details of where they have been and who they have been in contact with.
“It is absolutely vital that accurate information is shared with the Test Trace Protect teams. Their role is not to judge, their primary concern is to gather information that will keep other people safe as we all play our part in trying to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Any information given to Test Trace and Protect teams is treated in the strictest of confidence.
“By not giving the Test Trace Protect teams accurate information, these people are placing their own family members and friends at huge risk. We are urging them to think about other members of their own families, their friends and communities. Put simply, they are risking other people’s health and other people’s lives, especially if they are symptomatic, by not staying at home and continuing to mix in the local community.”
Although the latest figures seem to suggest Covid-19 is affecting more youngsters, a leading ICU consultant has warned it may be too early to tell what this means.
Dr Matt Morgan, a consultant at the University Hospital of Wales who treated some of the most desperately ill patients in the capital during the height of the pandemic, said: “The data seems to suggest Covid is affecting more younger people less likely to need hospital care than in March and April.
“However, the reasons behind this are unclear and this could change as winter approaches.”
It is possible that the older genera
tion are more likely to ask to be tested or that there are fewer more vulnerable older people left to catch the virus.
In the early months of the pandemic, only those who were getting seriously ill were being tested and those people tended to be older.
Now that testing is being rolled out as part of the test, track and tracing programme, the average age of those confirmed cases would naturally move toward the mean age of the population.
The percentage of tests coming back positive in Wales has increased from 0.3% in the middle of August to 0.8% at the end of the month.
Even so, PHW is anxiously waiting to see how much of an impact the latest local outbreaks in the lower Rhondda area, in particular in Tonypandy, Porth and Penygraig, will affect transmission rates in Wales.
Dr Howe added: “It is clear that coronavirus is very much still circulating in the UK, and we do expect to see clusters of cases during a pandemic of this nature.
“Anyone with confirmed coronavirus must isolate for ten days, with members of their household isolating for 14 days until the risk of passing on further infection has gone. Combined, these simple actions will ensure the virus does not spread.”