Coronavirus Updates: WHO Warns COVID-19 Killing More And More Young People

The COVID-19 pandemic is spreading at an alarming rate across the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) revealed on Friday that young people are getting critically sick and dying from the deadly coronavirus.

Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 Technical Lead at WHO, said at a news briefing that they are witnessing “more and more younger individuals who are experiencing severe disease.”

“We’ve seen some data from a number of countries across Europe where people of younger age have died. Some of those individuals have had underlying conditions, but some have not,” she added, CNBC reported.

During the briefing, she mentioned that they are noticing most of the people who are getting the severe disease and ending up in intensive care units (ICU) are people of older age and people with underlying conditions.

However, according to Kerkhove, in some countries, they are seeing people who are in their 30s, 40s and 50s, who remain in ICU and who have passed away.

She stated that several things about the coronavirus remain unknown. Kerkhove said that as the virus spreads in more countries, they are in the process of collecting more data and researchers are studying the behavior of COVID-19 coronavirus.

Meanwhile, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of emergencies program at WHO said that it is wrong to believe that the coronavirus can only have severe effects on old people.

“We collectively have been living in a world where we’ve tried to convince ourselves that this disease is mild in young people and more severe in older people, and that’s where the problem is,” he said.

He added that younger individuals must take precautions and prevent the coronavirus spread in the community.

According to the latest data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center, as of April 4, 12 a.m., 58,871 people have died due to the coronavirus and close to 1.1 million people remain COVID-19 positive.