PanAmWT

Various experts do speculate that US young people may be at higher risk due to preconditions such as smoking, being obese, and a more free spirit mentality compared to young people in East Asia.

It is not just NY. Here a UCSF report
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/03/41...em-experts-say

Coronavirus Is Sickening Young Adults and Spreading Through Them, Experts Say

“Everybody is capable of having a severe form of this disease. Every age group can end up in the hospital,” said Bibbins-Domingo. In fact, in the reports from China, the “mild” cases encompassed a range of severity, from no symptoms to pneumonia.

A new report from the CDC confirms that COVID-19 does not spare millennials and Gen Z. Among the first 4,226 cases in the U.S., more than half of patients who were hospitalized were under the age of 65, and one in five were aged 20 to 44.

Chin-Hong, said the report was “a wake-up call that it can happen to all ages,” and that he had already seen young and critically ill patients at UCSF. “They had no medical risk factors, no past medical history, and went straight into the ICU,” he said.

In California, the majority of confirmed cases so far have been in people younger than 50.

While it’s true that younger people are less likely to die from the illness, they could still require the ventilators and ICU beds that are in short supply.

Bibbins-Domingo worries that “we have emphasized the harmful effects in older adults, and so older adults are taking precautions, while younger adults are not taking precautions.”

“It’s important that younger adults understand that they are part of the solution,” she said.

Gen Z may be driving transmission

If the packed spring break beaches are any indication, younger adults are feeling less vulnerable to COVID-19 and many are not heeding the calls for social distancing. Not only are they risking their own health, they could be a major factor driving transmission rates, said Bibbins-Domingo.

And, here in California:

Coronavirus Update: Gov. Newsom Says 50% Of State’s COVID-19 Cases Aged 18-49

So, there are two high risk groups in the U.S. Older adults, and younger ones who have the preconditions including possibly smoking history, obese, and more free spirit mentality compared to East Asian youths.

doctoravios

I only wish this were true. The suppression efforts in London are laughable. Thousands of people crammed into packed tube trains on a daily basis. Hundreds of people mauling supermarkets. I think it is unwise of the Imperial team to make these assumptions about the efficacy of our public health approach. And to make such a statement after we are only a few days into the lockdown when there is potentially a huge lag in new cases yet to come is brave, at best.

Having said all of that, I truly hope they are right and we will see far fewer deaths than anticipated (and I do think this is feasible, but not a certainty).

nk15

All the charts of the Imperial College report are based on 75% compliance, they need to rerun the models with 20% compliance...

nk15

A 2:44pm EST today....Total cases:

China 81,285
Italy 80,589
USA 79,082

US is still reporting for the day...

GUWonder

There is some research that will probably come out in a more finalized form at some point, if it hasn’t already, that may indicate that some medicines used to control hypertension increase susceptibility to this virus (and in turn the opportunistic infections which may come with it). People under care for high blood pressure may want to ask their doctors about that kind of thing. Until doctors tell a hypertensive patient to do otherwise, it’s wise for such patients to stick to the already prescribed course of medicines unless and until specifically advised by your doctor to do otherwise. Chronic hypertension left untreated is dangerous in its own right.

GUWonder

Acquired immunity to cold viruses from exposure to a cold virus may even have an immunity period of a year or so — or maybe even a bit less. So some of those cold viruses can hit a person repeatedly over the years. There is no certainty yet that getting this novel coronavirus and getting beyond it as an individual provides any immunity or any immunity good for even more than a year or so. This is yet another concern that drives my distaste for the way Sweden is responding to this coronavirus spread.

GUWonder

Dr. Landon of the U of Chicago has a great speech about exactly that kind of dynamic. Maybe someone can put up a link to a video of her speech on this dynamic.

PanAmWT

Coronavirus Does Not Spare the Young

Young adults are unwitting vectors — and victims — of Covid-19

https://elemental.medium.com/coronav...g-b0244fba7761

Based on early anecdotal evidence and ill-advised statements, we’ve fooled the under-60 set, and particularly teens and young adults, into dangerous complacency.

stimpy

Hmm with young adults dying in states where marijuana is legal, could that drug be a factor in their deaths? Heavy users I mean. Just a thought.

Smiley90

Vaping would seem to be a much more likely suspect than weed.

GUWonder

Indeed. With our high levels of obesity — even childhood obesity — and high levels of chronic diseases (related to the proverbial white poisons going down American mouths) increasingly hitting Americans at younger and younger ages, a lot of people in the 20-50 year age range are also going to get hit hard by this virus.

JNelson113

I was thinking that today. Would be a very interesting thing to evaluate. Smoking weed a few times a week (or daily for many) cannot be a good thing for the lungs.

zymm

I would be interested to hear an actuarial point of view on all this, they're used to making rather cold-hearted calculations about the costs of life or death decisions and I bet they could build some excellent cost-benefit models with good enough data about disease spread (which we may not have yet, especially in the US where there STILL aren't enough tests). The ongoing shortage of tests is the main issue in the US, as long as we are limited to testing people with symptoms we have to stick to widespread social distancing since we can't identify the asymptomatic carriers. There have been enough documented cases of one person infecting 30+ at a single event that we'll never slow the spread without being able to identify and quarantine these people.

Also, for people talking about variation in annual death rates, that's really not relevant here as the time periods we're discussing are so much shorter. We're talking about the number of deaths doubling every 2 or 3 days, that's vastly different than doubling over the course of a year, or even a month. In the past 20 years, the US has never averaged more than 10k deaths/day from all causes in a month, with most months being under 9k/day (cdc data: https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/D76). At the current growth rate, we'll pass 9k deaths/day from Covid-19 alone in about 2 weeks in the US, and of course people will still be dying from other causes (some people who would have died anyway will die from Covid-19, but also some people who wouldn't have died from other conditions probably will due to diverted health care resources, for simplicity let's assume these cancel out). With the simplifying assumption in place, that means that in two weeks we could have double the number of people dying per day than at the worst point in the past 20 years. I think that's a pretty good argument for keeping the current measures in place until we can implement an effective testing/tracking/isolating routine like South Korea

GUWonder

bdschobel on FT has posted about having an actuarial background. Perhaps you can ask him to post here about this.

Confounding factor perhaps. Either way, I would have to assume that smog in say Delhi, India, or other very heavily (air) polluted parts of the world is probably no great favor.

T8191

75, and a smoker for 60 of those years, but that’s not the point. We (both 70+) are just keeping out of the way to minimise risk to the Health Service by getting infected. We’re both in ‘good health’ and travel extensively, so probably have a few anti-bodies already, but ....

.... It’s not US, it’s about everyone else and avoiding becoming a vector. We are staying at home, except for essential grocery