Indeed, elders are more vulnerable to coronavirus because of weaker immune systems. However, it does not mean young people are safe. Experts are now giving warning to everyone that everyone, regardless of what age, is unsafe to COVID-19--even the young and healthy can still get the virus and again die from the respiratory infection that the coronavirus gives.
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No One is Safe Says, Dr. Bruce Aylward
Dr. Bruce Aylward spoke to an Australian health conference earlier this month and has been recorded saying that people as young as 30 were already dying from the virus. So it's not just the elderly who are at risk in this deadly pandemic.
"I would emphasize that there were a lot of people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, who were dying as well," he said.
'People who did have comorbid conditions had a much higher ratio of dying from the disease, but in most people, there were no other predictors, apart from age, that they could die.'
Brian Oliver, an infectious expert at the University of Technology, has also talked about the deaths in young and healthy people tend to be higher in China than then the rest of the globe.
'What happened in China doesn't seem to be playing out in quite the same way elsewhere. In terms of younger people being susceptible, it seemed to be happening a lot more in China but not so much elsewhere, and I don't quite understand that,' he said.
'Because we haven't had these infections before, how our body responds to it is completely unknown... There's always going to be people who have no apparent risk factors and do very badly.'
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Even Newborns Are Sadly Susceptible
The youngest case we have so far on the planet is from a newborn in London who tested positive for the coronavirus strain just literally minutes in being born from a mother who was tested.
The mother was admitted to the hospital for having symptoms of pneumonia only to find out that she indeed has the coronavirus and was tested positive only after the baby was born. They were both hospitalized in North Middlesex hospital located in Enfield, north London, as reported by The Guardian.
How Did The Newborn Contract The Virus?
It is still unclear as to how the newborn got the virus because it was within 36 hours of birth that the test came back positive, and that is a lot of time that could have passed already to rule out that it came from the mother.
Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of Preventive Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine has said: "We can't say it happened while the baby was still in the womb,"
Similar Cases, Different Study
When the news spread about the baby being the youngest to contract the virus, a study was made in Wuhan, China, between nine women who contracted the COVID-19 while they were 36 to 39 weeks pregnant. All of which delivered their infants via C-section, and they wanted to see how the virus could be transmitted. The team analyzed and looked closely at the data and found that not the amniotic fluid, umbilical cord blood, breast milk, or samples found from the newborn's throat test positive for the coronavirus.
All the mothers and infants survived the ordeal, and the study was quickly published on February 12 in The Lancet journal.
The findings of both studies that are published and known to the world are proof enough that not even the young and healthy are safe to get the sickness. The bigger question now is what you can do to protect yourself and your loved ones, knowing that no one is safe. Stay at home and always practice proper handwashing and disinfect as much as possible. Lay low, stay safe.
