Hospitalized US Covid Patients Are Now Much Younger - And Unvaccinated

Darwin's theory of natural selection regarding survival of the fittest at work in the US. JL 

Talal Ansari reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Hospitals are seeing fewer Covid-19 patients but increasingly the ones who do land in the hospital are 50 or younger. Covid-19 patients 18 to 49 now account for 36% of hospitalizations, a 15.5% increase. Stagnating vaccination rates among younger Americans could persist and delay the pandemic’s end. "Young people think because they are healthy they don’t need to worry about the virus. (But) variants are making younger people sicker.” Only 27% of those between the ages of 18 and 29 are fully vaccinated. "The only patients we’re seeing in the ICU now are those who are not vaccinated.”

Hospitals are seeing fewer Covid-19 patients but increasingly the ones who do land in the hospital are 50 or younger, according to national data.

With older Americans vaccinated at higher rates, health officials and epidemiologists said they aren’t surprised that more hospital beds are being filled with younger patients.

But some are concerned about the potential stumbling blocks the trend poses. They worry that stagnating vaccination rates among younger Americans could persist and delay the pandemic’s end. Others are concerned that new, more transmissible and possibly deadlier coronavirus variants are contributing factors sending more younger people into hospitals.

“The trend toward younger adults getting sick and hospitalized may be due to pandemic fatigue, young people thinking that because they are healthy that they don’t need to worry as much about the virus, and low vaccination numbers,” said Tim Pfarr, spokesman for the Washington State Hospital Association, thoughts echoed by medical professionals in other states. “We also believe variants are making younger people sicker.”

At the start of this year, people aged 65 and older made up 53% of Covid-19 related hospitalizations, according to data from COVID-Net, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveillance system that draws data from numerous states, representing roughly 10% of the population. Those between the ages of 18 and 49 made up 20.5%, while patients in the 50-to-64 age group were 25.3% of hospitalizations.

Over the course of four months, as newly reported cases declined and the country fully vaccinated millions of people—especially seniors, who have long faced the highest mortality risk from Covid-19—the demographics of those hospitalized have seen a major shift.

Americans aged 65 and older now make up 28.5% of hospitalizations—a 24.5 percentage-point decrease from early January. The proportion of Covid-19 patients between the ages of 18 to 49, meanwhile, shot up. That age group now accounts for 36% of hospitalizations—a 15.5 percentage-point increase. Patients 50 to 64 years old have also gone up, to 32.4%, a 7.1 percentage-point increase. COVID-Net says the latest data is preliminary and can change as more data comes in.

Overall, hospitalizations have been declining. In early January, U.S. hospitals had nearly 125,000 Covid-19 patients. Intensive-care units at many major hospitals were at a breaking point. Since then, the drop has largely been continuous, and the latest CDC data show around 30,000 patients in the hospital.

But some states have seen flare-ups. Late last month, Oregon placed a large portion of the state under new restrictions, pulling back on recent reopenings, as Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations climbed.

“The surge in cases and hospitalizations is the result of the emergence of new and more transmissible variants and social gatherings without precautions,” said Tim Heider, a spokesman for the Oregon Health Authority.

The virus was particularly affecting younger, unvaccinated people, Mr. Heider said. In Oregon, the percentage of Covid-19 hospital cases among people 18 to 34 years old increased by almost 50% between December and April, and rose more than 35% for those 35 to 49 years of age, he said.

Patient data from UCHealth, a large healthcare system based in Colorado, show a similar trend. In November, the percentage of 18- to 39-year-old patients hospitalized at UCHealth was 18%. By April, that percentage rose to 26%.

Michelle Barron, a Covid-19 expert at UCHealth, said she started to notice a disproportionate rise in younger people with Covid-19 needing to be hospitalized in March.

“We suspect that it is both the inclement rise and spread of variants of concern, including the U.K. variant, and also the fact that the majority of patients that are being hospitalized at present are not vaccinated,” said Dr. Barron, who is also a professor specializing in infectious diseases at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine.

Vaccination rates differ among age groups, according to the CDC. Only 27% of those between the ages of 18 and 29 are fully vaccinated, and 36% of those 30 to 39 are fully vaccinated. Almost 44% of 40- to 49-year-olds are fully vaccinated, and that percentage jumps for those between the ages of 50 and 64, to 53.7%. For those 65 and older, it climbs higher, to 71.7%.

“There’s no question that the average age of hospitalization has gone way down,” said Joan Boomsma, chief medical officer for MaineHealth, the largest healthcare provider in Maine. Dr. Boomsma said that in January, the average age of those hospitalized was around 65. That figure fell to 58 in March, and again to 50 in April.

“It’s not that we never saw younger people—in fact we saw roughly the same, or comparable numbers of them when they’re in their 40s and even 30s,” she said. “What does seem to be different now is that those who are being hospitalized, are really very ill,” Dr. Boomsma said, adding that it’s unclear why.

“I think the real story here is that vaccines work,” she said. “We’re seeing fewer hospitalizations in the older age groups, and the only patients we’re seeing in the ICU now are those who are not vaccinated.”