Photo by Chris Bethell.
Living through coronavirus is stressful. Once innocuous activities like popping to the shop for a Kinder Bueno, or walking less than two metres away from another human are now riddled with threat. Death permeates the news, and it's easy to feel a mounting sense of dread every time you refresh your Twitter feed.While it's vital to stay cautious and follow social distancing rules during the global pandemic, it’s important not to freak out. This is true even when faced with worrying stories of young people who have died from coronavirus. Last week, 13-year-old Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, who tested positive for coronavirus, died at King's College Hospital, London. Josh Youngman, who was 26 years old, also died last week in Wales after contracting the virus. Neither were reported to have underlying health conditions.Government health advice warns that the elderly and the immuno-compromised are most at risk of coronavirus. However, as an increasing number of deaths of young people are reported, it’s clear that no one is completely immune. While the rate of deaths is small – the BBC reports that statistically, only 0.3 percent of teenagers who show coronavirus symptoms will require hospitalisation, and far fewer cases end in fatalities – coronavirus should still be taken seriously by young people.To find out more about the cases of young people dying of coronavirus – and ask how worried we should be – we spoke to Dr. Sarah Jarvis, GP and clinical director of Patient Access, a digital GP and prescription service.VICE: Hi Sarah. Why are we seeing more young people die from coronavirus?
Dr. Sarah Jarvis: [It’s] because we've got more people being infected. The number of coronavirus cases that are reported is only a fraction of people who are actually getting it, because we're only testing people who are severe enough to go into hospital. There are probably, we estimated, something like 1.6 million people in the UK who have had coronavirus. So, actually, with 1.6 million people infected – and one in 80 of them likely to end up in the hospital – it's not surprising we've got a lot of young people in hospital.
Dr. Sarah Jarvis: They are relatively unlikely. The trouble is, even if you have a one-in-1,000 chance of, for example, getting cancer, if it happens to you, it doesn't happen to you 0.1-percent – it happens to you 100-percent. If a million people put themselves at risk [of coronavirus], the chances are that 10,000 to 12,000 of them are going to end up in hospital.So, we need to be taking coronavirus seriously.
We are living in strange times. We hear a lot about the impact of coronavirus and we also keep hearing that the people most at risk of serious illness are older people and people whose immune systems are suppressed. Having said that, they are at higher risk. Everyone is at risk.
I don't think there's any doubt that more young people are going to die. If we don't all take these [social distancing] measures really seriously, and think that these rules about not socialising and not partying don't apply to us, then a lot more people – both old and young – are going to die.We all need to worry, because if you are younger – even if there is a good chance that you would get over coronavirus, and the vast majority of people would as it only kills 0.03 percent of people in their twenties – you could very easily pass the virus on to other people who are older.We all need to take this really, really seriously.Thank you, Dr. Jarvis!Interview has been edited for length and clarity.@RubyJLL
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Dr. Sarah Jarvis: [It’s] because we've got more people being infected. The number of coronavirus cases that are reported is only a fraction of people who are actually getting it, because we're only testing people who are severe enough to go into hospital. There are probably, we estimated, something like 1.6 million people in the UK who have had coronavirus. So, actually, with 1.6 million people infected – and one in 80 of them likely to end up in the hospital – it's not surprising we've got a lot of young people in hospital.
How common are the cases of people in their twenties dying from the virus?
Dr. Sarah Jarvis: They are relatively unlikely. The trouble is, even if you have a one-in-1,000 chance of, for example, getting cancer, if it happens to you, it doesn't happen to you 0.1-percent – it happens to you 100-percent. If a million people put themselves at risk [of coronavirus], the chances are that 10,000 to 12,000 of them are going to end up in hospital.
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We are living in strange times. We hear a lot about the impact of coronavirus and we also keep hearing that the people most at risk of serious illness are older people and people whose immune systems are suppressed. Having said that, they are at higher risk. Everyone is at risk.
To put it into perspective: one in 80 people in their twenties [who contracted coronavirus] were ill enough to be admitted to hospital. Of those, about one in 20 needed critical care – in other words, they needed to be ventilated in intensive care. In people aged between ten and 20, the figure was significantly lower. Only about one in 300 needed hospitalisation. In kids under ten, the figure is even lower still.How worried should young people be about coronavirus?
I don't think there's any doubt that more young people are going to die. If we don't all take these [social distancing] measures really seriously, and think that these rules about not socialising and not partying don't apply to us, then a lot more people – both old and young – are going to die.We all need to worry, because if you are younger – even if there is a good chance that you would get over coronavirus, and the vast majority of people would as it only kills 0.03 percent of people in their twenties – you could very easily pass the virus on to other people who are older.We all need to take this really, really seriously.Thank you, Dr. Jarvis!Interview has been edited for length and clarity.@RubyJLL