The Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal.
New Covid-19 Hospitalizations for 30- to 39-Year-Olds Hit Record Rate
Melanie Evans, Taylor Umlauf - Yesterday 6:04 AM
New Covid-19 Hospitalizations for 30- to 39-Year-Olds Hit Record Rate
© Houston Cofield/Bloomberg News
New Covid-19 Hospitalizations for 30- to 39-Year-Olds Hit Record Rate
Hospitalizations of Covid-19 patients in their 30s have hit a new record, U.S. government data show, a sign of the toll that the highly contagious Delta variant is taking among the unvaccinated.
Thirty-somethings, who are in prime ages for work and parenting, had largely avoided hospital stays for Covid-19 during earlier phases of the pandemic because of their relative good health.
Yet the age group is seeing new Covid-19 hospital admissions increase during the recent Delta-driven surge, which doctors and epidemiologists attribute to the failure of large numbers of Americans to get vaccinated and their highly active lives.
The rate at which adults ages 30 to 39 are entering hospitals with Covid-19 reached about 2.5 per 100,000 people as of last Wednesday, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Department of Health and Human Services, up from the previous peak of roughly 2 per 100,000 people in early January.
“It means Delta is really bad,” said James Lawler, an infectious-disease physician and co-director of the Global Center for Health Security at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
The strain is more transmissible, Dr. Lawler said, and studies indicate that infected people can develop more severe illness than from other strains.
The Delta variant was first identified in India and became the dominant strain in the U.S. in early July. It has pushed new infections higher after the drop that followed widespread rollout of vaccines earlier in the year.
New infections have climbed above 123,000 each day, using the seven-day average, which helps to smooth out irregularities in the data, according to Johns Hopkins University figures.
Hospitalizations, too, have increased from low points in the spring when more Americans became immunized.
Preliminary studies indicate vaccines protect against Delta, especially against severe cases or death, but the shots appear to be less effective against the variant than they are against the earliest versions of the coronavirus.
Uneven vaccination rates across the country and age groups has left pockets of people at risk from the tenacious Delta variant.
Nationally, slightly less than half of those ages 25 to 39 are fully vaccinated, compared with 61% of all adults, CDC data show. Ages are available for 92% of those fully vaccinated.
People ages 30 to 39 years accounted for about 170,852 new Covid-19 admissions of more than 2.5 million hospital stays since August last year, when the data became available. A surge in summer 2020 also saw rising Covid-19 cases among young people as they exited early lockdowns and resumed social activities.
Lately, hospital admissions among the age group have climbed rapidly, the CDC and HHS data indicate.
New hospital admissions of Covid-19 patients in their 30s hit 1,113 a day, on average, during the seven days that ended Wednesday, up from 908 the prior seven days. Recent numbers could change because reporting lags behind but would likely rise with additional reporting, epidemiologists said.
Even during the recent surge, young adults are at lower risk of Covid-19 hospitalizations than those in older age groups, according to CDC data. Risks of severe coronavirus infections increase with age and the health conditions that typically accompany getting older.
However, adults in their 30s also tend to be highly active socially and in the workplace, increasing their potential exposure to the Delta variant, said epidemiologists.
“It loves social mobility,” said Dr. James Fiorica, chief medical officer of Sarasota Memorial Health Care System in Florida, said of the variant. “An unvaccinated 30-year-old can be a perfect carrier.”
Active lifestyles can also make young adults more likely to spread the virus, making vaccination critical for those who have young children at home who aren’t yet eligible for shots, medical experts said.
“The most important way to protect kids is to make sure their parents are vaccinated,” Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins.
Covid-19 patients in their 30s are arriving at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock sicker than in earlier waves, said Nikhil Meena, medical director of the UAMS Medical Center’s intensive-care unit.
Doctors now frequently monitor younger patients daily with a scoring system for possible organ failure, Dr. Meena said. It wasn’t necessary for those in their 30s in previous surges. “This age group pretty much went unscathed,” he said. Now, “they’re all out there doing their thing and getting infected and getting sick enough to be in this hospital.”
Covid-19 patients in their 30s have also soared in Florida, where hospitalizations in the latest surge have set new pandemic records.
“They are people that shouldn’t be dying,” said Dr. Fiorica. One-third of Covid-19 patients ages 30 to 39 who were admitted to Sarasota Memorial Hospital since the pandemic began have arrived since June, when Delta began to push local cases higher.
Of four patients at Sarasota Memorial Hospital who died during a 24-hour period this week, one was a 38-year-old who wasn’t vaccinated, according to the hospital.
Write to Melanie Evans at
Melanie.Evans@wsj.com
New Covid-19 Hospitalizations for 30- to 39-Year-Olds Hit Record Rate
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