
Younger Adults Make Up Big Portion of Coronavirus Hospitalizations in U.S. - ddlatham
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/health/coronavirus-young-people.html
======
YeGoblynQueenne
>> New C.D.C. data showed that nearly 40 percent of patients sick enough to be
hospitalized were aged 20 to 54.

To be more specific:

>> Among 508 (12%) patients known to have been hospitalized, 9% were aged ≥85
years, 26% were aged 65–84 years, 17% were aged 55–64 years, 18% were 45–54
years, and 20% were aged 20–44 years. Less than 1% of hospitalizations were
among persons aged ≤19 years (Figure 2). The percentage of persons
hospitalized increased with age, from 2%–3% among persons aged ≤9 years, to
≥31% among adults aged ≥85 years. (Table).

More to the point:

>> The cases described in this report include both COVID-19 cases confirmed by
state or local public health laboratories as well as those with a positive
test at the state or local public health laboratories and confirmation at CDC.
No data on serious underlying health conditions were available. Data on these
cases are preliminary and are missing for some key characteristics of
interest, including hospitalization status (1,514), ICU admission (2,253),
death (2,001), and age (386).

From the report:

[https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm?s_cid=mm...](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm?s_cid=mm6912e2_w)

I don't really get why the 20-54 age range is reported as one category in the
NYT article when they're reported as separate categories in the CDC report.
Would it weaken the arcile's point to report that 20-44 year olds and 45-54
year olds both had around 20% chance of being hospitalised?

~~~
ddlatham
I think the article groups 20-54 because some people believe that only older
people are much affected by the disease. They picture hospitals filled with
the elderly. However, the data shows here that if you visited a US hospital
filled with these COVID-19 patients that close to 40% of them would actually
be younger people.

The article is not claiming that 20-54 year olds with the disease have a 40%
chance requiring hospitalization. The stats quoted also do not show that the
20-44 or 45-54 cohorts have a 20% chance of requiring hospitalization.
Instead, it's saying that the 20-54 cohort makes up close to 40% of the people
who require hospitalization.

I.e. I think you have the probability conditional backward. It's not P(need
hospital|age 20-54) ~= 40%. Instead it's P(age 20-54|need hospital) ~= 40%

The point is that it's not only the elderly who are affected here. They may be
most at risk, and most likely to die even with hospitalization, but even
younger people get sick enough to require hospitalization, without which the
fatality rate of that cohort may rise as well. If we don't "flatten the curve"
then adults of all ages may not get the hospitalization they need and start
dying.

(edit: corrected age bracket from 20-64 to 20-54)

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
>> The article is not claiming that 20-64 year olds with the disease have a
40% chance requiring hospitalization.

The article subtitle says:

"nearly 40 percent of patients sick enough to be hospitalized were aged 20 to
54."

>> I.e. I think you have the probability conditional backward. It's not P(need
hospital|age 20-64) ~= 40%. Instead it's P(age 20-64|need hospital) ~= 40%

The article is not making any such formal distinction.

~~~
ddlatham
Your comment asked:

>> Would it weaken the arcile's point to report that 20-44 year olds and 45-54
year olds both had around 20% chance of being hospitalised?

But I think that's unfair to the article. The data are not showing that 20% of
age 20-44 are hospitalized (which is how I read your question). Rather the
data say that 20% of the hospitalized are age 20-44. In fact, the article does
report that explicitly in the 6th paragraph:

 _In the C.D.C. report, 20 percent of the hospitalized patients and 12 percent
of the intensive care patients were between the ages of 20 and 44, basically
spanning the millennial generation._

So the article is being fair to the report, it is just summarizing the report
data in the lede.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
>> The data are not showing that 20% of age 20-44 are hospitalized (which is
how I read your question).

That is clearly not what I say. I quoted the CDC report that clarifies that a)
20% of those hospitalised were in the age range 20-44 and 18% in the range
45-54 and that b) that is only those for whom there is age data, which were
only a small proportion of all confirmed cases. Please give me the benefit of
the doubt that I know how to read English. At the very least I must have read
and understood the passage I quoted!

The article is pulling the CDC data this way and that and tries to argue that
"younger adults make up [a] big proportion of coronavirus hospitalisations
from the US", but there is no reason to base such a claim on the CDC data _and
there is no such claim in the CDC report_. The Times article simply mashed up
some of the data in the CDC report to make a sensational title. My comment
suggests that, if they want to attach a probability to the hospitalisation of
different age ranges, they should not try to aggregate the CDC age ranges just
to get to that "almost 40%" and instead use the best approximation that can be
derived from the CDC data, which is about 20% for those in each age range,
20-44 and 45-54.

And you are pulling my comment this way and that to show ... I'm not sure
what. Do you agree with the article, that "younger adults make up [a] big
proportion of coronavirus hospitalisation from the US"? If not, what exactly
are you disagreeing with in my comment?

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listenallyall
What's the definition of "sick enough to be hospitalized"? Given the over-
abundance of caution, I would imagine a good number of people with positive
tests are admitted, monitored overnight, then released in the morning, without
ever really showing much more than mild symptoms.

Tom and Rita Hanks were hospitalized. The worst of it, according to them was
"a bit tired, some body aches... some chills. Slight fever too" Now he "feels
the 'blahs' but has no fever."

[https://twitter.com/tomhanks/status/1237909897020207104](https://twitter.com/tomhanks/status/1237909897020207104)

[https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/18/tom-hanks-
has-t...](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/18/tom-hanks-has-the-
blahs-rita-wilson-recover-from-coronavirus-australia)

~~~
Rebelgecko
Anecdotally from people talking on my local subreddits, very few people are
getting testing at all unless they need serious medical attention. People with
less severe cases just get sent home. They're only getting tested if they have
confirmed contact with someone who tested positive, or recently returned from
international travel. I guess that way we can pretend community spread doesn't
exist.

The medical treatment that movie stars and NBA players are getting is not
representative of the average American's experience.

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ddlatham
It's not just the elderly who will die if the system is overwhelmed. Nearly
40% of those that are sick enough to require hospital care are between the
ages of 20 and 64[1]. If everyone is getting it at the same time and there's
not enough health care to go around, those 20-64 year olds will be dying too.

~~~
fiftyfifty
Exactly. As of March 18th in Italy 8.3% of healthcare workers are infected and
several older doctors have already died. That's bad for everyone in all age
groups.

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malandrew
I'm curious about comorbidities in those below 65 that were hospitalized. The
US generally leads the world in a lot of those health problems that predict
poor outcomes if you get COVID19

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fg6hr
That's expected. All the service industry workers are in that age range and
can't afford to skip work because of some coronavirus.

