Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci says it may take longer than a year to determine whether younger patients hospitalized from COVID-19 have long-term complications, reports Business Insider.
"It's the people who really get knocked out badly, particularly those who require hospitalization, that it's going to take months to a year or more to determine if there are any long-lasting, deleterious consequences of the infection," Fauci said Thursday during a conversation with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. "We just don't know that now. We haven't had enough time."
Early reports indicated that young people were more likely to have milder cases of coronavirus, but the rate of people age 18-29 hospitalized due to COVID-19 is four times greater than what it was in February when the virus first hit the U.S., according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
A study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that one in three young adults (18-25) were more prone to have severe COVID-19 infections if they smoked or had chronic illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, asthma, liver problems, autoimmune disease or obesity.
"I've never seen an infection with this broad range of manifestations," Fauci told Zuckerberg. Some young people, though, "can be knocked on their back and brought to their knees pretty quickly."
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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