Coronavirus cases in young adults jumped 144% across Northeast as students returned to campus
As students returned to college campuses in Massachusetts and around the Northeast, coronavirus cases in young adults jumped by 144% across the region, according to a new CDC report.
The Northeast region experienced the highest increase in reported virus cases among 18- to 22-year-olds. Weekly coronavirus cases in the Northeast — from Aug. 2 to Sept. 5 — climbed from 53 per 100,000 to 130 per 100,000.
The eye-opening report shows how young adults “don’t wear a suit of armor that protects them from COVID,” William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University infectious diseases expert, told the Herald on Wednesday.
“Clearly they’re less apt to get seriously ill, but that does not mean they don’t have to worry about it,” he said. “We can’t just wave our hands and say we don’t have to worry about young people. We have to be concerned about them. They can also be accelerators of the virus and spread it to older people.”
Massachusetts colleges have faced many coronavirus outbreaks since students returned to campus starting in mid-August. Some of the schools that have had the most significant clusters include Boston College and Merrimack College.
Meanwhile, the Bay State’s coronavirus transmission rate has steadily climbed to its highest rate since the end of March. Massachusetts’ reproduction rate is now up to 1.21, the second-highest rate in the U.S.
Curry College is the latest Massachusetts college to report a dorm outbreak. Five students from the same dorm — Mayflower Hall — recently tested positive.
“We have made the decision to temporarily quarantine all residents of Mayflower Hall until we have a better understanding of the potential number of students affected in the building,” a campus spokeswoman said in a statement Wednesday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report isn’t surprising because people in that age group are much more risk tolerant, and are more likely to participate in activities without social distancing, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security.
“The key is that they don’t transmit the virus to high-risk individuals,” Adalja said. “That’s why robust contact tracing and testing needs to be in place to keep that demographic from spilling their infections to more vulnerable populations.”
Colleges need to instill a culture of safe behavior and responsibility, Schaffner said. There should be constant reminders across campus to wear masks and avoid parties, he said.
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/30oTVDr
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