Many New York Coronavirus Patients Are Young, Surprising Doctors

[riversedge]

Source: bloomberg




Older patients remain most at risk, but hospitals are being hit with more and more younger cases
By Michelle Fay Cortez

April 1, 2020, 10:55 AM CDT Updated on April 1, 2020, 12:18 PM CDT


Younger adults in New York City are being hospitalized with Covid-19 infections at surprisingly high rates, said doctors and other health-care workers treating them, undermining earlier assumptions about who’s most at risk from the new coronavirus.

New York has more confirmed cases than anywhere else in the U.S., and about 1 in 5 hospitalizations are occurring in people under age 44, according to data released by the city’s health department. Globally, moderate-to-severe cases have occurred in 10% to 15% of adults under age 50, according to the World Health Organization.

On Friday at Manhattan's Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital, a previously healthy 32-year-old male patient turned to doctor Kaedrea Jackson and asked: “Am I going to die?”

The young man, who had no underlying medical conditions, was short of breath with a fever, and his oxygen levels were dropping rapidly. He’d come to the hospital’s emergency department four days earlier but was told to go home, drink water, take Tylenol and self-isolate. Now he was back and his condition was deteriorating. “The level of fear in his eyes stood out to me,” Jackson, an emergency medicine physician, recalled in an interview Tuesday. “He was extremely scared. And he was so young.”................................

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/coronavirus-in-young-people-ny-patients-skew-younger-some-die

[NCDem47]

1. Those who vape and don't equate it with impacting their health?

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Good question

I'd be wondering about lung health in the city, diet that diminishes immunity and increases inflammation (dairy, sugar, wheat, fried foods), but then I'm just an old health food nut.

[lunasun]

4. I did not see this in the article anywhere

[Pisces]

6. I think this needs to be looked into.

[Yavin4]

12. I don't think that it has anything to do with vaping or diet or anything.

There are probably different strains of this virus. If you get the really bad kind, it won't matter how healthy you are.

[C Moon]

13. That's always been my thought on this, as well.

[C_U_L8R]

3. They told themselves they were invincible.

Disinformation plus fantastic thinking leads to bad mistakes.

[mpcamb]

5. I wonder if that'll be the second wave of Covid-19... non-elderly population.

Especially if they have repeated exposures while the virus may be mutating.

[Laelth]

7. It's a real thing.

And for people who are young and healthy, it’s really dangerous. It’s called a CYTOKINE STORM and it can be deadly for people with strong immune systems.

-Laelth

[DeminPennswoods]

8. The longer one lives, the more viruses and bacteria a person

is exposed to. I read somewhere that the common cold is in the coronavirus family. Maybe over the years, older adults have developed at least some immunity having gone through a variety of colds, flu, etc. Young people don't have whatever that same protection that might afford.

[GeorgiaPeanut]

9. They were most likely to ignore warnings

thinking only old people are in danger.

Plus NY City probably tends to be younger anyway than other areas.

[Rebl2]

10. I think

in the beginning a lot of doctors actually thought the young were less vulnerable to this virus, but they didn’t say they cannot get it. I think younger people chose to hear the first, part less likely to get it, and went on about their business of socializing as usual. Now it sounds as if the younger people’s immune systems are over reacting to it causing them to be quite ill. This is so sad.

[IronLionZion]

11. Younger people go out more

they probably came into contact with more people. Children carry and spread viruses without symptoms so some of them could have gotten it from their kids.