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The most important COVID story right now is the age shift.
In Texas: Young adults driving the spike.
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/06/16/texas-coronavirus-spike-young-adults/
In">https://www.texastribune.org/2020/06/1... Arizona: COVID cases growing 2X faster among ages 20-44 than 65+.
In Florida: Median age of new COVID cases fell from 65 in March to 35 this week —>
In Texas: Young adults driving the spike.
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/06/16/texas-coronavirus-spike-young-adults/
In">https://www.texastribune.org/2020/06/1... Arizona: COVID cases growing 2X faster among ages 20-44 than 65+.
In Florida: Median age of new COVID cases fell from 65 in March to 35 this week —>
Why is this the most important story right now? Two reasons.
1. It helps resolve (for now) a statistical mystery: Why are cases accelerating but deaths (for now!) not accelerating?
A: New cases are younger, and young ppl have lower fatality rate. https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1273983344389259264?s=20">https://twitter.com/DKThomp/s...
1. It helps resolve (for now) a statistical mystery: Why are cases accelerating but deaths (for now!) not accelerating?
A: New cases are younger, and young ppl have lower fatality rate. https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1273983344389259264?s=20">https://twitter.com/DKThomp/s...
2. The recent COVID case acceleration is being driven by three big states—Texas, Arizona, and Florida. https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1274098827096518656?s=20">https://twitter.com/EricTopol...
Caveat: This stuff is complicated, esp since our capacity to treat the disease AND our capacity to measure the disease are both dynamic, so it& #39;s hard sometimes to know if we& #39;re measuring reality or measuring our capacity to measure. More theories here —> https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1272891062512648192?s=20">https://twitter.com/DKThomp/s...
In closing: Accelerating cases among a low-risk group might be BETTER than accelerating cases among a high-risk group, but that doesn& #39;t mean it& #39;s GOOD; and hundreds of thousands of infected young ppl milling about in a haphazardly opening economy is, in fact, VERY BAD.
(To anticipate the inevitable, correct reply to that last tweet: This disease is not, in the big picture, "low risk" even for young adults whom it doesn& #39;t kill, or hospitalize. The long-term effects of the disease are unknown.)
Important point here about how the shifting age distribution of the disease represents, in part, changes in testing. https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1275074495464607751?s=20">https://twitter.com/ScottGott...
If age distribution of US COVID cases really is shifting toward young people, we should eventually see it show up in the age distribution of deaths. https://twitter.com/_stah/status/1275075019312214023?s=20">https://twitter.com/_stah/sta...
