WHO: Proportion of Youth with Covid-19 Triples in 5 Months

Young people afflicted by nightclubs and beaches are contributing to an rise in fresh coronavirus cases worldwide, with the proportion of those aged 15 to 24 who are contaminated rising three-fold in just five months, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO study of 6 million illnesses between 24 February and 12 July showed that the percentage of people aged 15-24 increased from 4.5% to 15%, reports Reuters.

Aside from the United States, which has a worldwide total of 4.8 million incidents, European nations, including Spain, Germany and France, and Asian countries, such as Japan, have said that many of the newly diagnosed are young people.

“Younger people tend to be less vigilant about masking and social distancing,” Neysa Ernst, nurse manager at Johns Hopkins Hospital’s biocontainment unit in Baltimore, Maryland told Reuters in an email.

“Travel increases your chances of getting and spreading Covid-19,” she said, adding young people are more likely to go to work in the community, to a beach or the pub, or to buy groceries.

The surge in reported outbreaks, the so-called second wave of infections, has caused several countries to enact fresh bans on travel, just though businesses are scrambling to develop a fast-spreading virus antidote that has destroyed more than 680,000 lives and up-to-date economies.

Even countries such as Vietnam, widely praised for its mitigation efforts since the coronavirus appeared in late January, are battling new clusters of infection.

Among those aged 5-14 years, about 4.6% were infected, up from 0.8%, between February 24 and July 12, the WHO said, at a time when testing has risen and public health experts are concerned that reopening of schools may lead to a surge in cases.

Anthony Fauci, the leading US expert on infectious diseases, urged young people last month to continue to socially distance, wear masks and avoid crowds and cautioned that asymptomatic people could spread the virus, too.

Indeed, health experts in several countries have urged similar measures as they report that infected youth show few symptoms.

“We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again: young people are not invincible,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news briefing in Geneva last week.

He said: “Young people can be infected; young people can die; and young people can transmit the virus to others.”

Last month, Tokyo authorities announced they would carry out coronavirus checks in the nightlife areas of the capital, and advised nightclubs to provide customers with adequate room for proper ventilation and to warn them not to talk loudly.

In France last month, the authorities shut down a bar where customers ignored the laws of hygiene and triggered an epidemic.