For months, public health officials have said that younger adults were the big drivers behind the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. But new research suggests there is another age group that may be fueling new cases of the virus: people ages 35 to 49.
That is the conclusion of a just released study from Imperial College London in the United Kingdom. The study, which is published in the journal Science, analyzed mobility data from the cell phones of more than 10 million Americans between the beginning of February and the end of October 2020. The data helped researchers determine, among other things, where people went, such as restaurants and supermarkets. The researchers then compared that data with COVID-19 cases and death rates by age.
The researchers concluded in the study that the “majority of COVID-19 infections” come from people between the ages of 20 and 49, but people between the ages of 35 and 49 were responsible for 41.1 percent of new cases of the virus. . Those in their late 30s and 40s driving the spread of the virus were consistent across the country, the researchers said in the study, but the “ estimated contributions ” of people between 20 and 34 were higher in the southern, southwestern and western regions of the United States. States.
“This study provides evidence that the resurgent COVID-19 epidemics in the US in 2020 were caused by adults aged 20-49, and in particular adults aged 35-49, before and after school reopening,” wrote the researchers. “These adults were responsible for an estimated 72.2 percent of SARS-CoV-2 infections in the US after the school reopened in October 2020”
The findings overlap with research shared by the CDC in September. That study analyzed data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia and found that 20 percent of COVID-19 cases in the US between March and August 2020 were in 20- to 29-year-olds – the highest rate of any age group. The report also found that the median age of people infected with COVID-19 dropped from 46 years in May to 38 in August.
So what’s going on here? The latest data suggests that “as a result of work, school and general activity, the Middle Ages generally move a lot compared to the elderly or the very young,” study co-author Dr. Samir Bhatt, an associate professor of geostatistics in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College London, tells Yahoo Life. That, he says, increases their risk of infection – and of passing the virus on to others. But, Bhatt adds, it’s “hard to disentangle” exactly what is going on “apart from the fact that they generally move more.”
Middle-aged people may also have more connections than those younger and older, study co-author Oliver Ratmann, a statistics teacher at Imperial College London, told Yahoo Life. And, he adds, those contacts could involve people who are “highly susceptible to COVID-19 infection.”
Still, Bhatt says, “The exact reason at this point is speculation – our work only looks at the signal in mobility, not the factors driving that mobility.”
Dr. Amesh A. Adalja, infectious disease expert, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, tells Yahoo Life the data is not shocking. “We’ve seen for a while that younger groups aged 20 to 49 are driving the spread,” he says. While Adalja says it is “not entirely clear what is going on,” he has some theories. There are more contacts than younger or older groups.
“They may work outside the home and interact with individuals more than other ages,” he says. And since this age group typically has a lower risk of serious complications from COVID-19, they are “possibly more risk-tolerant” and less at preventing the spread of the virus, Adalja says.
Ratmann says his findings suggest that “non-pharmaceutical interventions” such as wearing a mask and clear guidelines for preventing the spread of the virus are “so important” in controlling the spread of COVID-19. “Even with vigorous interventions and guidance, sections of the population will still have to relocate for a variety of reasons,” he says. “Therefore, even while the vulnerable are being vaccinated, measures must be taken to control those parts of the population that are still spreading the infection.”
Adalja says the study and other data raise the possibility that vaccinating middle-aged people earlier could help control the spread of the virus. “These data clearly show where the focus on public health should be,” he says. “It could be a theoretical advantage to vaccinate the group of individuals to reduce the spread.”
For the latest coronavirus news and updates, then follow up https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus. According to experts, people over 60 and people who are immunocompromised are still most at risk. If you have any questions, consult it CDCs and WHO resource guides.
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Originally published