Why are young healthy people dying from coronavirus? The signs and symptoms to know
CORONAVIRUS is more likely to be fatal if you are over 80 years old, with the chances of dying ten times higher than average.
However, a number of young people are dying from the virus, even without pre-existing health conditions.
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Thirteen-year-old Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, from Brixton, died from coronavirus after being rushed to King's College Hospital in London following breathing difficulties.
Luca Di Nicola, 19, originally from Italy but living in North London, passed away just 30 minutes after being rushed to hospital last Tuesday - from apparent fulminant pneumonia.
Neither of the victims had known pre-existing health conditions.
Research from Imperial College London suggests that the death rate is nearly 10 times higher than average for people over the age of 80, and lower for those under 40.
However, while deaths in younger people are rare - as are developing more serious symptoms - they are not immune.
The college explained that 0.03 per cent of people under 30 will die from coronavirus which while compared to 9.3 per cent of those over 80, shows that anyone is susceptible to the virus.
Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at UEA, warned: "The message should be that young, healthy people are dying from this infection."
Another study suggests children are not as immune as previously thought.
Research conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics looked at more than 2,000 patients under the age of 18 and found 10.6 per cent of infants displayed "severe and critical” symptoms.
One way younger people could be getting critically ill is because of a "cytokine storm" which is when the body produces too many immune cells.
Dr Pankhania explained that "healthy young people can have an overreaction" causing severe illness when their immune system goes over the top and attacks other parts of the body.
This happens less commonly in older patients, although it can affect any age group.
There are some suggestions that the new symptoms of losing your sense of taste and smell could be prevalent in younger people too, as the body's way of fighting the virus in the nasal passage.
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Professor Nirmal Kumar, president of ENT, told Sky News: "In young patients, they do not have any significant symptoms such as the cough and fever, but they may have just the loss of sense of smell and taste, which suggests that these viruses are lodging in the nose."
However, the current advice from WHO urges anyone with a high temperature and or a persistent cough to self-isolate for seven days, with the two symptoms being the most common.
Other symptoms include feeling tired, a shortness of breath and muscle aches and pains.
Anyone over the age of 70 has been told to self-isolate for 12 weeks, to reduce the risk of catching the bug.
Middle-aged people also aren't as immune to the virus as previously thought either.
MORE ON CORONAVIRUS
New analysis, published in The Lancet, has shown an increase in risk for coronavirus once a person reaches middle age.
It found 3.43 per cent of people in their 30s needed hospital treatment for Covid-19, rising to 4.25 per cent in their 40s and 8.16 per cent in their 50s.
There are nearly 30,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK, with deaths jumping by 563 to 2,352.
