Thread by @DrEricDing

📍More younger people are being admitted to hospitals with the coronavirus than at any other time in the pandemic. Michigan hospitals are now admitting about twice as many #COVID19 patients in their 30s and 40s as they were during the fall peak. Thread 🧵 nytimes.com/2021/04/25/us/…

2) younger adults, many of whom only recently became eligible for vaccines, now make up a higher share of total hospitalizations. But the number of people in their 30s and 40s hospitalized with Covid-19 nationally has also increased somewhat since March, says CDC.

3) Hospitalizations among younger people have been up most notably in the Great Lakes states, with rises seen as well in the Mid-Atlantic.

4) younger adults were coming to the hospital with severe forms of Covid-19. The B.1.1.7 variant — first identified in Britain and now the most common source of new infection in the United States — is believed to be about 60% more contagious and 67% more deadly than original

5) Public health experts attribute the hospitalizations among younger people to a number of factors, including the B.1.1.7. variant and the lifting of pandemic restrictions around the country. Younger people are among those most likely to be out and about socializing

6) But near Detroit, where cases remain high, doctors said they had not lowered the bar for admissions. The younger people in their care often had fewer chronic health problems and a good chance to recover, but they exhibited serious symptoms that required immediate intervention.

7) “Some of them have kids that are younger than my kids, & you think about these people and circumstances for their family if they don’t survive,” Dr. Felicia Ivascu said as she looked out over a unit where sickest of patients were hooked up to machines in glass-walled rooms.

8) According to data from Maryland, where overall hospitalizations are up from last month, people in their 30s have a 5 percent chance of being hospitalized if they learn they have the virus. But as more younger people get infected more will inevitably be admitted to hospitals.

9) In hallway after hallway at the sprawling hospital, doctors and nurses donned extra masks to go inside the rooms of Covid-19 patients and spoke somberly about seeing people of their own generation in dire shape.

10) “You take it home a lot more,” said Ms. Budnik, 32, the intensive care nurse. “Your mind-set is a little different when you look at them and you think this could be my friend, this could be my sister, this could be me.”

11) Dr. Olusola Ogundipe, an infectious-disease fellow, said he noticed that some of his younger patients also had a tougher time emotionally with their condition. “They have a feeling of immortality,” he said, “and so I think it does take younger people by surprise.”

12) Michigan isn’t alone. Brazil also seeing surge in cases in younger patients, even in kids.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1382691594588020743

13) Brazil seeing a sharp increase in young adults seriously affected too.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1386629143765438468