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Nick Cordero was everyone’s friend, he loved to listen, to help, but above all to talk, recalls his wife Amanda. For 95 days, Nick Cordero battled the consequences of the coronavirus in hospital, suffered from blood poisoning, several strokes and had his right leg amputated. The 41-year-old actor and Broadway star died in July with no known medical history.
Cordero’s fate is an isolated incident, but it shows that even people who are not part of the main risk group can become seriously ill with Covid-19 and, in the worst case, die. Very seldom But it happens.
A recently published American analysis of more than 3,200 Covid-19 patients aged 18-34 shows what people can expect if they have to be hospitalized for Covid-19:
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21 percent, almost one in four, had to go to the Intensive care unit be treated.
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10 percent were mechanically ventilated.
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2.7 percent died. This made the death rate from Covid-19 roughly double that of a heart attack in the age group.
In younger people, the same factors apparently favor a severe course as in older people. Young overweight patients, for example, had to be ventilated more frequently and were also at higher risk of dying. If several factors such as severe obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes came together, according to the study, young patients had the same risk of developing severe Covid-19 as those aged 35 to 64 without these previous diseases.
“It is not true that there cannot be harmful consequences for young people.”
“In view of the increasing rate of infection among young adults,” the study authors warn in the journal “Jama Internal Medicine,” “the findings underscore the need to prevent infections in this age group.” The well-known American immunologist Anthony Fauci, who has been advising all American presidents on health issues since Ronald Reagan’s term, warned: “It is not true that there cannot be harmful consequences for young people. We are seeing more and more complications in Young. . “
However, not everyone sees it that way.
“It doesn’t matter if younger, healthier people get infected. I don’t know how many more times you have to say that,” Scott Atlas told a San Diego television station in July. Atlas has been an official member of the US Crown Task Force for a few weeks now and is trading as Fauci’s opponent.
Before being appointed scientific adviser to the government, Atlas spoke out against school closings in interviews with Fox News, which is said to have piqued the interest of the US president. Donald Trump’s passion for Fox News is well known.
Atlas had advised other Republican presidents on health issues. As an expert in radiology, before Corona, unlike Fauci, he had dealt primarily with the brain, not with infectious diseases.
How high is the risk of Covid 19 really for younger people?
According to the Robert Koch Institute, more than 90,300 people up to 34 years of age have contracted the corona virus in Germany. After all, they make up a third of recorded infections. However, they die much less frequently from the consequences. So far, two deaths among those under 20 have been reported across the country, both with previous illnesses. Another 34 deaths are known in the age range of 20 to 39 years.
It is estimated that a 25-year-old person has a 250 times lower risk of dying from Covid-19 than an 85-year-old infected person. But death is not synonymous with risk, as Derek Thompson rightly put it in an analysis for the American magazine “The Atlantic”. The current US study shows that younger people can also get seriously ill with Covid-19; data from the US is also consistent with early surveys from Germany.
In an AOK study of a total of more than 10,000 Covid-19 patients who had to be treated in hospital, only about three percent were between the ages of 18 and 29. But at least 6.3 percent of them had to be artificially ventilated. The sample is small and therefore not representative. But make it clear that Covid-19 is not an easy cold for the very young either.
In the video: Long-Term Harm to Crown Patients – “My Life Has Shrunk”
Overall, the rate of hospital admissions for people ages 18-29 per 100,000 in the US has tripled in just a few months. According to an analysis in the “Journal of Adolescent Health” with more than 8000 test subjects, a third of young people aged 18 to 25 could be prone to a severe course, for example, because they are overweight or suffer from cardiovascular disease. The biggest risk factor in this age group is nicotine use. The WHO also warned that smokers are at a higher risk of contracting Covid-19.
And even if an infection progresses without symptoms, as is often the case in younger people, the possible consequences of the infection have yet to be investigated. Changes in the lungs that are typical of Covid-19 were found in people who at least initially had no symptoms. There are also individual cases of younger patients who have been diagnosed with diabetes in connection with Covid-19.
“That could easily knock them out for months.”
Additionally, young people in particular report long-term consequences that could be related to Covid-19. (Read more about it here.) “It’s scary,” David Putrino told The Atlantic magazine. He is a rehabilitation specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, who cares for patients who have symptoms such as permanent fatigue long after they have been infected with the coronavirus. Many of his patients are women in their 40s who were previously fit and healthy. “We have all these young people who feel invulnerable,” says Putrino. “But that could easily knock her unconscious for months.”
However, since the start of the pandemic, there has been an idea around the world that if only the very young were infected, it would not be a big problem, but maybe even a good thing. According to the theory, the more young adults are infected, the faster herd immunity could be achieved. The pandemic would go away on its own.
But as tempting as the plan may seem, it didn’t work out in practice. Neither the UK nor Sweden have managed to keep the virus out of high-risk groups. The number of deaths increased rapidly.
In Germany, too, many more people have recently tested positive for the corona virus, and younger people are still particularly affected. How devastating the pandemic will continue in this country will depend on whether the virus is transmitted to the elderly.
Even at the beginning of the outbreaks in Germany, young people returning home from a skiing holiday were mainly infected. In the weeks after their return, the number of infections among the elderly increased and with it the number of those who had to receive intensive care and the number of deaths. Germany is now better prepared. Periodic tests in hospitals and healthcare centers are aimed at preventing chains of infection. Now it remains to be seen whether the precautionary measures are sufficient. (Read the key lessons for fall here.)
The crisis of the crown affects the youngest three times. They are also not immune to a serious course, at the same time, they suffer particularly from restrictions, both socially and economically. And they are responsible for ensuring that the virus does not spread further.
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