Patricia Dillon

This evening Mayor Elicker issued an alert about an increase of COVID cases in New Haven in young people. This is alarming. COVID's short term effects on younger adults  are more severe than had been understood.

“Nationally and here in New Haven, we are seeing an increase in COVID positive cases in young adults. If our cases continue to increase due to people not following our COVID-19 health and safety guidelines as we near Halloween and other big holidays, we will have to consider tightening up our restrictions across the City.” - Mayor Justin Elicker

Attached is a research note from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on young adults, including methods and findings. It’s technical. I’m highlighting some key points.

“We investigated the clinical profile and outcomes of 3222 young adults (defined by  the US Census as age 18-34 years) who required hospitalization for COVID-19 in the US…
Discussion | Young adults age 18 to 34 years hospitalized with COVID-19 experienced substantial rates of adverse outcomes: 21% required intensive care, 10% required mechanical ventilation, and 2.7% died.
...More than half of these patients requiring hospitalization were Black or Hispanic, consistent with prior findings of disproportionate illness severity in these demographic groups.”

Talk about young adults focuses on the danger of transmitting COVID to relatives, but not enough on the risk to yourselves. Masks and hand washing are critical. Social distancing is harder, at least for me, but as the cases of those in contact sports demonstrate, it's important for all of us  to pay attention to prevention at this time. Winter is coming.