4

In this link https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/347806-fuese-segunda-guerra-mundial-doctora (Spanish) which also contains the YouTube video (where she says basically all of the text mentioned in the link), posted today, hours ago, an emergency doctor Miriam Sánchez from a hospital in Spain was interviewed and this was said (emphasis mine):

However, their main concern is the high number of infections suffered by the young population of the country and that, despite not having previous pathologies, they end up admitted with bilateral pneumonia and serious breathing difficulties.

"I am concerned that this is not what I was told," says Miriam. "They had told me that it was a flu and we are seeing from day to day that this is not the case, and that it does not only affect older people."

Is that true?

Is the bold text sustained?

All the things that I've read so far is that, when one is young, healthy and\or no previous pathologies, then it won't be a complicated case i.e. no serious breathing difficulties not pneumonia nor anything like that.

Please someone clarify this situation, thanks in advance.

16
  • 1
    "High number" is not a quantifiable measure and falls to a matter of opinion, we deal with claims that are quantifiable here. Mar 27, 2020 at 17:53
  • 4
    Some deaths are misrecorded. In this tragic case of a 21-year-old the coroner recorded the official reason as being related to Covid-19, but the hospital where she was treated disagrees. Mar 27, 2020 at 18:44
  • 3
    No: my point was that Covid-19 was the recorded cause of death, but not the actual cause. It would answer a similar question about heart attacks with no related history, but here it would be a false positive. Mar 27, 2020 at 19:06
  • 1
    "High number" could mean 1%. Without some degree of quantification the quote is not "notable", from a Skeptics viewpoint. Mar 27, 2020 at 20:32
  • 2
    @America - Some early reports suggested that "young people" (whatever that means) would not be in any danger at all. But clearly that is not the case (I'm thinking an 18-year-old in California was one early fatality). But is the death rate of young (and otherwise healthy) people "significant" compared to the older population? No one knows -- there is no "yardstick" to measure this. Mar 27, 2020 at 21:00

1 Answer 1

3

COVID-19 is so new that there are a lot of things that are uncertain. There is some anecdotal evidence that young people can develop significant complication. For example, this article in the Atlantic by a NYC doctor describes a number of young, healthy patients coming to the hospital with significant discomfort and in one case sever inflammation.

The New York times published the experience of a 26 year old that was admitted to the hospital due to COVID-19.

The CDC has started to compile some statistics. A recent CDC report found that nearly 20% of hospitalizations were people between 20 and 44 years old. The data doesn't make clear how many of them had underlying conditions or how many of them developed pneumonia but it certainly shows serious complications are not uncommon.

2
  • Thank you for the informative answer. Mar 28, 2020 at 2:49
  • That Atlantic article is brutal, whomever is gonna read it, stay calm when reading it. The 26 year old experience is more brutal. Then, we can see it makes sense to what doctor Miriam Sánchez said. So it's happening on Spain, USA, ... Mar 28, 2020 at 2:50

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .