PENNSYLVANIA, USA — Doctors are warning younger people to go get vaccinated as they say they are seeing 'micro-bursts' of young people that need to be hospitalized because of coronavirus.
"The spike that we're seeing I'll say is in the 18-49-year-old category range," said Dr. Peter Dillon of Penn State Health who also said there have been a few children that have been admitted with symptoms.
Dr. Dillon said many of the young people don't require a respirator so they're not placed in the ICU. However, he said the symptoms are severe enough that many of the young people have required oxygen therapy.
Wellspan Health has seen the trend too.
"Since March 2021, there has been a nationwide trend of increased COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in younger populations. We have also seen this trend in South Central PA. Potential reasons for this trend include lack of vaccination in this population, participation in higher risk activities often without an ability to follow safety protocols (i.e. school, sports, extra-curricular activities, spring break activities), variant spread with increasing transmissibility, “COVID fatigue,” and possibly a false sense of security given better COVID-19 outcomes in younger populations," said Dr. Eugene Curley, WellSpan Infectious Disease Physician.
"The other area that concerns us are the number of variants we are seeing in this population," said Dr. Dillon.
Schedule a COVID-19 vaccination appointment with Penn State Health or Wellspan Health.