{"id":268361,"date":"2020-09-11T03:15:43","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T07:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=268361"},"modified":"2020-09-11T03:15:43","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T07:15:43","slug":"a-sobering-breakdown-of-severe-covid-19-cases-shows-young-adults-cant-dismiss-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/09\/11\/a-sobering-breakdown-of-severe-covid-19-cases-shows-young-adults-cant-dismiss-it\/","title":{"rendered":"A sobering breakdown of severe COVID-19 cases shows young adults can\u2019t dismiss it"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
More than half of the hospitalized young adults were Black or Hispanic, although race or ethnicity was not associated with an increased risk of death or needing a ventilator. (Pexels photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A new study underscores the fact that people ages 18 to 34 can still get severely sick
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although older adults face the highest risk of being hospitalized with or dying from COVID-19, younger adults can also\u00a0end up in the hospital<\/a>\u00a0(SN: 3\/19\/20<\/em>). If they do, the outcome can be serious, and a new study is providing a look at just how severe the disease can be for those patients.<\/p>\n

Of roughly 3,200 people ages 18 to 34 who were admitted to 419 U.S. hospitals from early April to the end of June,\u00a021 percent, or 684 people, landed in intensive care<\/a>\u00a0and 10 percent, or 331 patients, ended up on ventilators. Almost 3 percent, or nearly 90 people, died, researchers report September 9 in\u00a0JAMA Internal Medicine<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Those numbers are \u201calarming figures given that COVID-19 outbreaks are rampant in many U.S. colleges that have opened for in-person learning,\u201d says Aubree Gordon, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Younger adults now make up nearly a quarter of U.S. coronavirus cases.<\/p>\n

A 3 percent death rate is lower than what has been reported for hospitalized older adults with COVID-19 \u2014 which was more than 20 percent in two separate studies from the\u00a0United States<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Germany<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 but still higher than it is for some other illnesses. For instance, it\u2019s more than twice the death rate for heart attacks in young adults, the researchers wrote.<\/p>\n

Underlying conditions like severe obesity or high blood pressure were linked to more serious illness or death. And the team found that younger adults who have multiple underlying conditions can face similar risks of serious illness and death as people 35 to 64 years old without those conditions. More than half of the hospitalized young adults were Black or Hispanic, although race or ethnicity was not associated with an increased risk of death or needing a ventilator.<\/p>\n

Seeing more severe disease in younger adults with underlying conditions mirrors findings from larger populations that include people from other age groups, says Aaron Milstone, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University.<\/p>\n

Because the study considered only hospitalized patients, it can\u2019t say what the risk is for young adults in general who are infected with the coronavirus, he says. But \u201cif you get hospitalized, your risk of complications is high, and that should be concerning for everyone whether they are a child, young adult or senior citizen,\u201d Milstone says.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, 3 percent of the people who survived their hospital stay needed more care in a nursing facility afterward. It\u2019s unknown whether any of the other patients discharged from the hospital suffered from lingering COVID-19 symptoms.<\/p>\n

\u201cYoung people often shrug off their risk, citing their age,\u201d Gordon says. But the findings underscore the fact that younger people at still at risk of severe symptoms, she says, particularly if they have other health conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new study underscores the fact that people ages 18 to 34 can still get severely sick Although older adults …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":268362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5742],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science-2","mauthors-erin-garcia-de-jesus","mauthors-science-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":268363,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268361\/revisions\/268363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}