Skip to main content

SFGATE: WHO warns young people are driving virus's spread

WHO warns young people are driving virus's spread
Published on August 19, 2020 at 04:34AM by William Wan and Moriah Balingit, The Washington Post

The World Health Organization warned Tuesday that young people are becoming the primary drivers of the spread of the novel coronavirus in many countries - a worrisome trend experts fear may grow in the United States as many colleges and schools begin to reopen.

Many nations in Asia, which had previously pushed infections to enviably low rates, have experienced surges in recent weeks at the same time that the age of those infected skewed younger.

"People in their 20s, 30s and 40s are increasingly driving the spread," Takeshi Kasai, the WHO's Western Pacific regional director, said at a news briefing on Tuesday. "The epidemic is changing."

More than half of confirmed infections in Australia and the Philippines in recent weeks have been in people younger than 40, WHO officials said, a stark contrast to predominantly older patients from the previous months. In Japan, 65 percent of recent infections occurred in people below age 40.

Because symptoms are often milder in the young, Kasai noted, many are unaware they are infected.

"This increases the risk of spillovers to the most vulnerable: the elderly, the sick, people in long-term care, people who live in densely populated urban areas and underserved rural areas," Kasai said.

The global health agency's warnings come amid intense debate in the United States about whether to bring students back to classrooms. So far, at least 168,000 people in the United States have died of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to a Washington Post analysis.

For colleges and universities, where students in their late teens and 20s live in tight quarters and mingle at off-campus gatherings, the problem has proved particularly vexing.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill confidently reopened campus last week...

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Global Health Issues

Global Health Issues        Info: Despite incredible improvements in health since 1950, there are still a number of challenges, which should have been easy to solve. Consider the following....     One billion people lack access to health care systems... 36 million deaths each year are caused by noncommunicable diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic lung diseases. This is almost two-thirds of the estimated 56 million deaths each year worldwide. (A quarter of these take place before the age of 60.) Cardiovascular diseases (C V Ds) are the number one group of conditions causing death globally. An estimated 17.5 million people died from C V Ds in 2005, representing 30% of all global deaths. Over 80% of C V D deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Over 7.5 million children under the age of 5 die from malnutrition and mostly preventable diseases, each year. In 2008, some 6.7 million people died of infectious diseases alone, far more than the
1 comment
Read more

World Education Report

The World Education Information Report’s focus on education as a basic human right is a fitting choice for the International Year for the Culture of Peace. Education is one of the principal means to build the‘defenses of peace’ in the minds of men and women everywhere – the mission assumed by UNESCO when the Organ- ization was created more than half a century ago. The twentieth century saw human rights accepted worldwide as a guiding principle. Our ambition for the new century must be to see human rights fully implemented in practice.       This is therefore a good moment for the inter- national community to reflect on its understand- ing of, and commitment to, the right to edu- cation. Education is both a human right and a vital means of promoting peace and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms gener- ally. If its potential to contribute towards build- ing a more peaceful world is to be realized, edu- cation must be made universally available an equally accessible to all
1 comment
Read more

Tips for Health Care and Guide

Professionals. Guidance notes on the Muslim fast during Ramadan The Muslim fast during the month of Ramadan provides  an opportunity for health professionals to promote  health improvement among Muslims by offering lifestyle  advice on topics such as diet and smoking cessation.        It is important to recognize  that the Muslim community,  like any other, is diverse. This results in differences of  perception and practice among Muslim patients. The  start of Ramadan advances 11 days every year as it is  based on a lunar calendar and will sometimes fall in the  summer months, resulting in a more onerous fast than  when it is in the winter months. In 2007 Ramadan starts  in mid-September.      Fasting during Ramadan is intended as a discipline and  requires abstinence from anything taken orally during  the hours of daylight, each consecutive day for a month.  This includes water and smoking. Bleeding will also  preclude the fast for that day. Fasti
2 comments
Read more