Why no one should believe they’re safe
As the tragedy of Adam, 28, proves, young people ARE being killed by this virus – and many were perfectly fit and healthy
BEAMING at the camera, Adam Harkins Sullivan seems much like any fit, healthy young man his age. But, tragically, last week the 28-year-old painter and decorator from North London, became one of the youngest British victims of the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world, it has been reported.
Arsenal fan Adam, father to seven-year-old Harry, was admitted to University College Hospital with pneumonia.
He was put into an induced coma, and later died, his family said.
‘We are all just in shock, because he was only a young man,’ said his devastated mother Jackki Harkins, adding: ‘He was healthy. You
didn’t have to tell him to eat his greens, he was always like that.’
Yesterday, amid further tragedy, it was reported that Birmingham-based hospital phamacist Pooja Sharma, 33, had also died with Covid-19. She passed away just 24 hours after the illness claimed the life of her father Sudhir, 61, a Heathrow worker.
On paper at least, those over the age of 50 and, in particular, people with other health problems, including heart disease and diabetes, have most to fear from the new coronavirus.
Early studies from Wuhan, China, where the disease was first identified in December last year, suggested 80 per cent of all deaths were in those over the age of 65, with the worst outcomes for patients in their 80s.
Younger people were much more likely to suffer a ‘mild’ illness, or no symptoms at all.
And this is part of the reason the virus has spread so fast, say experts. People often don’t know they’ve got it, so go about their normal lives, unknowingly infecting others.
However, 15 per cent of patients suffer a severe illness – and emerging evidence suggests this is not just a worry for the elderly. So, undoubtedly, there will be more – perhaps many – tragic cases like that of Adam Harkins Sullivan and Pooja Sharma.
Over the past month, reports have emerged of youngsters in many countries ignoring advice to practise social distancing. Such is the concern, World Health Organisation boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus last week warned young, healthy people they would not be ‘invincible’ during the pandemic.
‘Although older people are hardest hit, younger people are not spared,’ he said.
The most recent US figures show just that. While fatalities are highest in those over 85, one study found that out of 500 hospitalisations, 18 per cent were aged 45 to 54, and 20 per cent were 20 to 44.
One in ten ICU admissions – the most perilously ill – were in this youngest age bracket.
Dr Stephen Griffin, a virus expert at Leeds Institute of Medical Research, warns: ‘Everyone, potentially, is at risk. Yes, the odds get worse as we get older. But each time a person is infected, a struggle begins between the virus and that person’s immune system. And you can’t say, with any certainty, which will win – because genetics, and many other factors we don’t yet understand come into play.
‘So, while it’s true that eight in ten patients with severe disease will be over 65, two will be younger. And when you multiply that on the huge scale, that is a lot of young people who could be killed by this virus.’
DR NATHALIE MacDermott, a paediatric i nfectious diseases specialist at King’s College London, agrees, saying: ‘ We have seen people in their 20s and 30s die from this virus.
‘ Some had underlying medical conditions, others didn’t.’
Another patient who knows all too well what it’s like being on the unlucky side of the statistics is Michael Prendergast.
The ‘fit, healthy, gym-going’ 28year-old, from Kerry, Ireland, began to suffer a headache a fortnight ago, shortly after coming back from a trip to London. Within 24 hours, the symptoms came on with brutal speed: a soaring temperature, uncontrollable shaking, and sudden, extreme breathlessness.
‘ There is a misconception that this is just a cold or flu,’ said Michael, in a video he recorded from his hospital bed. ‘It is not. It is harrowing. It feels like you’re not far from death.
‘I’m young, sporty and go to the gym. I never would have imagined I would be so sick.’
His mother Joan, 61, added: ‘He kept calling me from hospital saying he was terrified he’d die alone.
It was horrible because I wasn’t allowed to go in the ambulance or to the hospital, i n case I was infected, too.’
Thankfully, only a handful of people in Kerry have been infected – and, crucially, hospital staff had the time to give Michael their full attention.
‘He needed all the experts around him doing constant checks because he was having sporadic attacks of breathlessness,’ Joan says. ‘And it took five days in a hospital bed to get him stabilised. It terrifies me to think of what might have happened had they been overwhelmed, like hospitals elsewhere.’
Michael returned home on Tuesday. But he has not yet recovered.
‘He is still having periods of total breathlessness and the unbearably high temperature,’ says Joan. ‘He can’t eat anything, so he’s losing weight. I’m leaving drinks and prescribed nutrition supplements outside his room. He’s anxious that he won’t get better. I feel so powerless – I can’t even go into his room in case he passes it to me. I use FaceTime and texts to check he’s OK.’
Meanwhile, Joan is still awaiting her own test results, having been screened last Friday.
She says: ‘ At the beginning of t he week I had a runny nose, a slight dry cough and some muscle aches, but t hey’ve r educed now. So, if I have had it, it’s extremely mild – nothing compared to what Micheal has been through, and I’m twice his age.’
It has been almost three months since the Chinese government alerted the WHO about the new coronavirus – subsequently named
SARS-CoV-2 – which causes Covid19. And, since then, scientific understanding of the virus and the way in which it causes illness, has been growing at breakneck speed. But one important question r e mains unanswered: why do some people become severely unwell with Covid- 19, while others – the majority – experience few, if any s y mptoms? Some scientists believe the amount of the coronavirus an individual is exposed to in the first instance – the ‘infectious dose’ – may have something to do with it. Once a virus enters the body, it colonises cells and begins to replicate. And some think the higher the infectious dose of SARS-CoV-2 at the beginning, the worse the subsequent illness. This is seen with flu.
It may also explain why some healthcare workers – including Li Wenliang, the 33-year-old Chinese ophthalmologist who first sounded the alarm about coronavirus cases, and who died in February – have been reported to suffer Covid-19 more severely.
There have been a number of reports of ‘previously fit and well’ junior doctors, and ear, nose and throat specialists with Covid- 19 being placed on ventilators.
Doctors and medical staff may be exposed to a high infectious dose while examining the face, mouth or nose of their patients – as the virus can be carried in the breath, even if a patient has no symptoms. It could be the result of spending time close to one infectious patient, or a cumulative effect.
Friends of Pooja Sharma, the 33