Adults between the ages of 20 and 49 are the biggest spreaders of COVID-19 in the US, according to British researchers who say a vaccination of this age group could hasten the reopening of schools.
A team from Imperial College London used cell phone data from more than 10 million people to calculate that 65 out of 100 infections still came from people aged 20 to 49 in the US.
They found that people in that age bracket accounted for about 72 percent of the cases after schools reopened in October. Less than 5 percent came from children and less than 10 percent from teens.
Adults ages 35 to 49 accounted for 41 percent of new cases through mid-August, compared with 35 percent for adults ages 20 to 34, according to the peer-reviewed study published in Science.
“We see that adults aged 20-49 are the main driver of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States and are the only age groups that contribute disproportionately to its further spread, relative to their population size,” said Dr. Melody Monod from Imperial College.
“Although children and teens are contributing more to the spread of COVID-19 since the school closure mandates were lifted in the fall of 2020, we see that these dynamics have not changed materially since the school reopened,” she added .
Dr. Oliver Ratmann of the college said, “We believe this study is important in showing that adults aged 20-49 are the only age groups to consistently maintain COVID-19 across the US, despite wide variations in the scale and timing. of local epidemics.
“So, at least where highly transmissible variants have not been identified, additional interventions targeting the 20-49 age group can control revival epidemics and prevent deaths,” he added.
Meanwhile, a new study suggests that antibodies to coronavirus persist for at least six months after infection for the majority of people who contract the bug.
The UK Biobank study found that 99 percent of participants who tested positive for a previous infection retained antibodies for three months after being infected, while 88 percent did so for the full six months of the study, according to Sky News .
“This important study has shown that the vast majority of people retain detectable antibodies for at least six months after infection with the coronavirus,” said Professor Naomi Allen, chief scientist at the UK Biobank.
“While we aren’t sure how this relates to immunity, the results suggest that people may be protected from subsequent infection for at least six months after a natural infection,” Allen said.
“Longer follow-up will allow us to determine how long such protection is likely to last,” she added.