COVID-19 spiking among young adults

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• According to the World Health Organization, the number of young people aged 15 to 24 who are infected with COVID-19 is rising three-fold in a five-month duration.
• Young people who are gathering in nightclubs and beaches are adding to the increase in new coronavirus cases all over the world.
• “Young people can be infected; young people can die; and young people can transmit the virus to others,” the WHO Director-General said.

Young people going to nightclubs and beaches have sparked a rise in coronavirus cases around the globe, the World Health Organization said.

The proportion of people between the ages of 15 and 24 infected with COVID-19 has inreased three-fold in about five months, according to the United Nations health agency.

“We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again: young people are not invincible,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters last week.

“Young people can be infected; young people can die; and young people can transmit the virus to others.”

Between Feb. 24 and July 12, WHO analyzed 6 million infections and found that the proportion of people with COVID-19 aged 15-24 years rose from 4.5% to 15%.

The agency added that among children aged 5-14 years, about 4.6% were infected, a rise from 0.8%, between those dates.

In Europe, countries such as Spain, Germany and France and Asian countries like Japan and Vietnam have reported that many of the new cases of COVID-19 are young people.

It’s the same case in the U.S., which leads the world tally with 4.8 million total infections, the WHO said.

“Younger people tend to be less vigilant about masking and social distancing,” Neysa Ernst, nurse manager at Johns Hopkins Hospital’s biocontainment unit told Reuters.

“Travel increases your chances of getting and spreading COVID-19,” she said, adding young people are more likely to gather in groups in bars or the beach, as well as to work and grocery stores, without wearing masks.

Health experts are urging young people to observe social distancing, wear masks and avoid crowded places, emphasizing that those who are asymptomatic can infect others and spread the virus, too.

Source: Reuters